Texas-based New Era Energy & Digital has unveiled ambitious plans to construct a colossal "hyperscale" data center complex in Lea County, New Mexico, a region already at the heart of the Permian Basin’s oil and gas industry. The proposed campus, designed to house immense AI processing capabilities, is so vast that it includes provisions for its own dedicated nuclear and natural gas power plants, boasting a combined generation capacity of approximately 7 gigawatts. This staggering figure is equivalent to merging the power output of the West’s two largest power plants, Palo Verde and Gila River, both located near Phoenix, and adding an additional 800 megawatts. Such an output could theoretically electrify over 5 million homes, though its stated purpose is to fuel the ever-growing demands of digital activities, from streaming and social media to the computationally intensive tasks associated with artificial intelligence.

While the sheer scale of this proposal might suggest significant media attention, it has, thus far, garnered relatively little coverage. This is not due to any deliberate attempt at secrecy, but rather reflects a broader trend: the rapid proliferation of such announcements has become so commonplace that each individual proposal no longer registers as extraordinary news. Even if only a fraction of these ambitious data center projects materialize, they are set to fundamentally reshape the West’s power infrastructure, its landscapes, and its economies, mirroring the profound impact of the post-World War II industrial expansion that saw the rise of massive coal-fired power plants and hydroelectric dams across the region to support burgeoning urban centers.

This transformative period is already in motion. A recent report from the nonprofit NEXT 10 and the University of California, Riverside, revealed that in 2023, data centers in California consumed an estimated 10.82 terawatt-hours of electricity – enough to power roughly one million U.S. households. This consumption translated into approximately 2.4 million tons of carbon emissions, even within California’s comparatively clean energy framework. The report also highlighted the substantial water footprint of these facilities, noting that they consumed around 13.2 billion gallons of water for cooling and electricity generation. In Silicon Valley, data centers alone accounted for approximately 60% of the total electricity load for one municipal utility, prompting rate increases for customers to fund necessary upgrades to transmission and substation capacity, as well as the installation of new battery energy storage systems.

These digital hubs are increasingly establishing themselves beyond the traditional tech enclaves of Silicon Valley, spreading into cities and towns across the West. Phoenix, Arizona, for instance, already hosts over 100 data centers, often resembling large commercial buildings packed with rows of computer servers. Projections suggest that planned expansions could triple Arizona’s total power demand compared to current levels, according to utility assessments. In response, Arizona Public Service has announced its intention to continue operating the Four Corners Power Plant, a coal-fired facility, beyond its previously scheduled 2031 retirement date to help meet this escalating demand.

Across the Western United States, the expansion of data centers is a pervasive trend. The interconnected but also fragmented nature of the Western power grid, divided into 38 distinct balancing authorities, means that nearly every region is anticipating an increase in data center-driven electricity consumption in the coming decade. The North American Electricity Reliability Corp. has issued warnings that this burgeoning demand is elevating the risk of winter power outages in parts of the West. Consequently, many large-scale data centers are opting to generate their own power, while utilities face the considerable challenge of rapidly expanding generation capacity and associated infrastructure to serve the growing demand from on-grid facilities. The financial burden of this new infrastructure will ultimately fall upon the ratepayers of these utilities.

The question of how this massive surge in power demand will be met is complex. It is becoming increasingly clear that renewable sources like solar and wind power alone will be insufficient to satisfy projected needs. As a result, utilities are re-evaluating their strategies, including extending the operational life of existing coal power plants and constructing new natural gas facilities. Furthermore, the prospect of nuclear energy is re-emerging, with major technology companies such as Google, Switch, Amazon, OpenAI, and Meta exploring the potential of powering their proposed facilities with advanced small modular reactors, a new generation of nuclear technology still under development.

The environmental implications of this data center boom are multifaceted and significant. The burning of fossil fuels directly contributes to climate change and air pollution, while the extraction of oil, gas, and coal can inflict considerable damage on landscapes. Large-scale solar and wind farms, while renewable, can impact wildlife habitats and necessitate extensive new transmission infrastructure. Nuclear power, though a low-carbon source, presents challenges related to safety, radioactive waste disposal, and the environmental legacy of uranium mining. Even data centers powered entirely by solar and battery storage consume resources that, in the absence of this new demand, could have been used to displace fossil fuels. Moreover, unless equipped with closed-loop air-cooling systems, many data centers still require substantial amounts of water for cooling, often drawing from municipal water supplies.

Prometheus Hyperscale, a Wyoming-based company, has articulated a vision for "sustainable" data centers featuring dedicated clean energy generation, water recycling, and advanced cooling systems designed to leverage the colder climate of the Northern Rockies. They have even proposed harnessing server heat for applications like greenhouses and aquaculture. While the prospect of integrating nuclear micro-reactors is also on the table for future supplementation, the company’s immediate operational plans rely on natural gas. To offset its carbon emissions, Prometheus intends to partner with another company to capture and sequester carbon dioxide from biofuel plants in Nebraska.

Resistance to the rapid expansion of data centers and their substantial energy and water requirements is mounting. However, the localized nature of these projects often makes coordinated opposition challenging, akin to a game of whack-a-mole. Following the defeat of a proposed data center, Project Blue, in Tucson, Arizona, by local residents who opposed its plan to utilize treated wastewater for cooling, the developers relocated the project to unincorporated county land. There, they proposed an air-cooling system, which conserves water but demands more energy. Despite continued opposition, the firm ultimately committed to investing in sufficient renewable energy capacity on Tucson Electric Power’s grid to match its entire electricity consumption.

Adding to the challenges faced by those opposing data center development is the fact that many local governments and utilities actively welcome these projects. Data centers can offer significant economic benefits, including job creation and tax revenue, provided they are not granted substantial tax exemptions. Utilities, eager to expand their customer base and generate revenue to fund necessary infrastructure upgrades, also view these facilities favorably. As Jeff Brigger, an executive at NV Energy, remarked upon the announcement of numerous data centers heading to Nevada, the utility is "excited to serve this load."

While much of the opposition to data centers centers on their environmental impact and potential effects on utility rates and local communities, the underlying technology of artificial intelligence itself has also become a point of contention. There is a perceived disconnect between the utility of essential services like food production and the energy and water consumption of systems that generate content for entertainment, answer trivial questions, create digital art, or provide digital companionship, particularly when this demand necessitates the continued operation of coal power plants. While AI holds immense promise for significant positive applications, such as medical diagnostics and data analysis for scientific breakthroughs and geopolitical problem-solving, critics argue that its development should prioritize efficiency. The call is for AI to first address its own considerable energy and water footprint before it fundamentally reshapes the world.