I don't think people understand just how much power it would've consumed. 600MW is about the equivalent of 180,000 homes. It would also use massive amounts of water. In the desert. In Arizona. These things should not exist anywhere, but especially in places with very limited water.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
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Residents cheer as Tucson rejects Amazon's massive Project Blue data center campus in Arizona
(www.datacenterdynamics.com)
Getting the A.I. datacenters now we need to kick the almond and dubai alfalfa farms in the desert.....but a victory is a victory.
Just salt that earth and they will be forced to leave
To put that into perspective, Tucson Electric Power has a generating capacity of 3,101MW. So at 600MW, that facility alone would be nearly 20% of their current capacity.
For those questioning why build in a desert:
- Tectonically stable region.
- Natural disasters don't hit.
- All the sun in the world for solar if they want to run that in parallel.
- Land is cheap.
- Low humidity assists evaporative cooling.
- Near a large city from which to pull workforce.
Seems like an ideal spot. They just need to hold off until:
it could switch to using treated wastewater once a new water line was completed. That line would combine reclaimed water with treated, previously-contaminated water from a Superfund site.
These data centers would be OK if our governments would grow a pair and lay down regulations.
- Closed loop water cooling. Non-negotiable.
- X% power must come from solar. We can kick the X number around.
- If the DC effects area utility rates, the owner eats the difference, not the citizens.
- Put monster projects like this to a public vote.
Yeah, the last bit sounds good but could be sticky. Around here people are screaming about a new sewage treatment plant on my favorite river. If well planned and with oversight, that would be fine by me, but my neighbors would kill the project.
I'm Mr. Environmentalist around here, spend a great deal of time on that river and it's tributaries. The health of this ecosystem is of top importance to me. But we need the damned plant.
I agree with you, but the X% power generation should be over 100% at least. They have the money for it, and they'll create a ton of externalized costs to the residents. They should at least be required to provide something to them.
Power was the only externalized cost I had thought of. What else?
Interesting idea mandating power usage should be 100%+. I like that, on it's face, not sure how reasonable that would be in the real world. I'm in Florida and solar is (was) booming.
Traffic, increased infrastructure demand, as well as increased power putting a strain on the power network requiring upgrades. It also takes potential employees from other workplaces, increasing their costs. Obviously water (which they can mostly elimate, but still). The space also can't be used for housing or anything else, so increases the cost of housing. There's also probably tons of effects we wouldn't even think about.
The space also can't be used for housing or anything else, so increases the cost of housing.
TBH, a lot of this can be fixed by better zoning. Such as removing minimum sizes for lots and easements. That'd allow for more dense housing without even going into multi-family homes like duplexes and triplexes, though updating zoning to allow those would also help. Right now, most new construction are these oversized, multi-thousand square foot monstrosities that few people actually need.
Another thing people don't consider is the usefulness of mixed zoning. Right now most cities don't allow spaces for businesses like small grocery stores to share a zone with houses in new construction. If it was allowed, a lot of people could easily switch to walking or biking to such places, reducing the need to overly large roads that take up a lot more space than you'd think.
And as a side bonus, this would be a lot more sustainable for the cities, budget-wise. Roads are expensive to maintain, as are the services that are run along them. With less dense neighborhoods, there's fewer taxpayers per foot of road, pipes, cables, etc., the costs to the city go up. In most cities, the suburbs are acutally subsidized by the more dense neighborhoods near the city center.
If you want more details, I recommend the book Strong Towns by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
Sure, but it would still effect the cost unless there is literally zero demand. Less space is less space. It doesn't matter how well it's being utilized. Better utilization would decrease costs though, and yeah have tons of side benefits. Zoning should be fixed whether this is built or not, everywhere.
The county has been under a non-disclosure agreement since at least June 2024.
This part is bullshit and should not be allowed, people have a right to know what their government is doing and considering.
Why don’t these companies build in northern states? They are cold in the winter and there is tons of water.
Not as many local governments willing to throw them tax incentives and take bribes.
Cheap, empty land, probably. And I'm guessing there was a tax incentive. Probably cheaper power in AZ from solar power too, more than hydro.
They would need to bring their own solar power, because Arizona doesn’t have much… Surprisingly.
They are easier to attack. AZ is landlocked.