Overview
- Project Stratos would build a city-scale data campus in Box Elder County to serve AI, military, and cloud needs, starting near 3 gigawatts and expanding to as much as 9 gigawatts.
- The developer says Phase 1 would use about 24 acre-feet of water for the data centers and claims the use would be a net positive for the Great Salt Lake.
- Utah State University researchers dispute those figures, noting that closed-loop cooling still loses water to evaporation and that dumping heat back into groundwater could stress aquifers that feed the lake.
- Scientists also warn of climate impacts, with one physicist estimating a 50% jump in Utah’s greenhouse gases if the power is gas-fired and a climate scientist projecting a possible 3 to 4 degree local heat rise that needs further study.
- Friends of the Great Salt Lake are protesting a water-right change to convert groundwater from farm to industrial use for the project, and county and state reviews remain pending.