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Physicist warns proposed Stratos campus could seriously affect local environment

A proposed mega-scale datacenter in the US state of Utah has caused controversy after a physics professor estimated that the facility and its associated power generation could dump 23 atomic bombs' worth of energy per day. But the real question is whether it will actually ever get built.

The datacenter is part of the Stratos Project Area in Box Elder County, Utah, overseen by the Military Installation Development Authority (MIDA), a state agency straddling the military, local government, and private developers.

Creation of the Stratos Project Area, covering about 40,000 acres of land, was given the go-ahead in a May 4 announcement from the Box Elder County Commission, after delaying a vote amid residents’ concerns.

At full buildout, the proposed Stratos campus could require up to 9 GW of power, making it one of the largest datacenter developments in the world. Meta’s planned Hyperion cluster is aiming for 5 GW, for example, while the first facilities hitting 1 GW are only expected to come online this year.

For comparison, 9 GW is roughly comparable to New York City’s average electricity demand.

Utah State University physics professor Dr Rob Davies estimated that the proposed Stratos campus and its associated natural gas power plant could dump energy equivalent to 23 atomic bombs per day into the surrounding Hansel Valley. Davies’ preliminary analysis said this could raise daytime temperatures by 2°F to 5°F (1°C to 3°C) and nighttime temperatures by 8°F to 12°F (4°C to 6°C), potentially causing serious ecological impacts in the high-desert valley.

Not surprisingly, many have questioned Davies’ figures, especially as he doesn’t publish his math, with the topic debated on forums such as Reddit.

However, even skeptics such as Andy Masley, a writer and researcher who claims to have taught high school physics, find that the math broadly checks out, so long as the bomb you measure it by is the one dropped on Hiroshima, which at about 15 kilotons, was much smaller than modern weapons.

The key thing to bear in mind, however, is that an atomic bomb releases its energy all at once in the blink of an eye, whereas in the datacenter’s case, the release of the heat will be spread across 24 hours.

However, the point Davies was making is that this will be extra energy being pumped into what is already a fragile desert environment, and the figures “strongly indicate the need for thorough and independent ecological assessment” of the impact of the Stratos Project.

A recent study by a team at the University of Cambridge also suggested that datacenters can create heat islands, raising surrounding temperatures by several degrees at distances of up to 10 km (over 6 miles). 

This was met with skepticism by Omdia Senior Research Director Vlad Galabov, who told The Register that “Simple physics suggests that even very large datacenters contribute only a small additional heat flux when spread over kilometres.”

The Stratos Project is intended as a long-term scheme, with a multi-year buildout, meaning that it may not reach full capacity for a decade, if at all.

Reports suggest that the finance industry is becoming increasingly concerned about the level of borrowing that is needed to continue this datacenter build boom.

The Financial Times reported recently that banks are looking for new ways to offload risks, with JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley trying to distribute datacenter-related deals across a broader range of investors.

CoStar Group also warned that construction costs for modern bit barn campuses have surged, thanks to massive upfront spending on land, power support systems and specialized construction, leading to large projects running into the billions of dollars.

According to some estimates, building 1GW of AI datacenter capacity costs around $35 billion, with Nvidia’s figures said to peg the costs at $50 to $60 billion. If correct, the developers of the Stratos facility will be looking at costs in excess of $300 billion.

Alan Howard, principal analyst for colocation and DC building at Omdia, puts the figure slightly lower, but still sees problems ahead.

“Thinking about a rough $8m per MW, that would put datacenter construction at ~$8 billion for just building construction including power and cooling. The power generation and IT equipment would be on top of that, so the number would be over $100 billion,” he told The Register.

“What’s important here is that the money comes from different sources: Stratos pays for site development; other companies will likely pay for building construction; even other companies will build and operate the onsite power generation; and even other companies will buy and operate the IT equipment."

"The tricky part is the tepid climate for funding these big projects. While there will be multiple companies providing funding for different pieces, the debt financing underwriting process will look at the broader project as part of their risk assessment,” he stated.

Developers in the US and elsewhere are also facing increasing opposition to datacenter projects from local communities, with projects being delayed or entirely canceled in response. ®