Will data centers be energy self-sufficient?
We got a lot of traction from the “Growing microprocessors instead of wheat?” story that we published in The Fence Post at the beginning of January. And it’s not surprising given the massive amount of power those data centers require. If you missed it, the story can be seen at https://tinyurl.com/yztdmzc6. It was about a proposed data center in northeastern Colorado near Sterling that would require up to 2 gigawatts of electricity. “To put that into perspective, Colorado Springs Utilities needed a little more than one gigawatt to meet its peak summer demand in July 2024. Tri-State Generation and Transmission, which provides power to 39 mostly rural electrical cooperatives spread across four states, including Colorado, has a peak demand of 2.5 gigawatts,” wrote Allen Best, who publishes an e-magazine called Big Pivots.
In Wyoming, a 1.8 megawatt data center is being built by Tallgras Energy and Texas-based Crusoe Energy Systems, according to a story in Cowboy State Daily. That was the largest planned data center announced in the state, that is until the developers increased the size of the project to 2.7 gigawatts, which is triple the power use in the state. And if that’s not astonishing enough, the plant could scale up to 10 gigawatts.
Of course, the developers say they will use gas turbines and fuel cells to power the plant, so it won’t affect rates for us locals, but I’m not sure most residents, including myself, believe that.
In fact, the other day a man came to my door to let me know that my electricity bill was going to go up by 10 percent. He offered to discuss solar panels with me to help offset the increase in cost.
Sorry, but the cost of the solar panels and their installation will probably cost the same or more than my electric bill every month, and those panels do nothing to increase the value of my home, so I declined.
Another disturbing issue is the amount of water these plants are going to need for cooling purposes. Developers of the Wyoming project say they are not going to use public water resources. They intend to construct deep groundwater wells. Call me skeptical, but I don’t believe that there is an infinite amount of groundwater to be found in Wyoming or any other western state.
The problem is that county and state officials see these projects as cash cows and these officials are racing to have these projects built in their states.
Trump has said that AI tech companies need to “pay their own way” for power and not expect Americans to “pick up the tab” for data centers. But he is also a businessman and he’s often said that we are in a race with China to develop AI. And he likes to win.
I would just caution county and state governments to be cautious and not sell out their power grids and water supplies to these hungry data centers. And we as electric rate payers need to keep a close eye on our elected officials.
In other news, I will be attending the Colorado Farm Show, which will be held Jan. 27-29 at Island Grove Regional Park in Greeley. If all goes as planned I will be there Jan. 27 and 28 in the morning. See you in Greeley.
