By Dan Ross

This article was originally published by Truthout

To power the growing demand for AI, New Mexico is gearing up to build a data center with a city-sized carbon footprint.

At the very Southeastern tip of New Mexico bordering Texas and Mexico, a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center is gearing up to be a greenhouse gas and air pollution behemoth, an additional water user in a drought-afflicted region, and a sower of community discontent.

Project Jupiter is one of five sites in the $500 billion Stargate Project, a national pipeline of massive AI systems linked with OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank.

“Health is my biggest concern. I’m worried about the air pollution, the ozone, and the buzzing noise,” local resident José Saldaña Jr., 45, told Truthout.  Saldaña has lived in Sunland Park, New Mexico, nearly his entire life, and he’s worried about Project Jupiter’s added environmental footprint in a pollution hotspot. Another big data center is going up in nearby El Paso, Texas. He lives less than two miles from a landfill that emits such an unpleasant smell, he can’t even hang his clothes out to dry.

“I’m just trying to stand up for my community,” Saldaña said of his opposition to the facility. But the project is racing ahead, and has already cleared one important hurdle: financing, including a massive tax break for the data center’s backers.

Between September and October, the Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners approved three funding ordinances, including the sale of industrial revenue bonds up to $165 billion.

With important permitting decisions still pending, work at the project site has already begun. Proponents tout all sorts of alleged benefits. This includes at least 750 well-paid new full-time positions and 50 part-time roles within three years of operations, with a priority for local hires. Instead of paying property and gross receipt taxes, the project will make incremental payments spread out over 30 years totalling $360 million — just a fraction of the bond monies.

Opponents of the project argue, however, that any benefits to the local economy are far outweighed by the impacts from potentially millions of tons of heat-trapping gas emissions annually from the plant’s proposed energy microgrid. This, when global warming is on track to increase by as much as 2.8 degrees Celsius over the century, blowing past Paris Agreement benchmarks set just 10 years ago.

And while Project Jupiter isn’t expected to be as thirsty as some of its fellow data centers, water advocates warn about any uptick of water usage in this drought-afflicted region, especially when New Mexico is projected to have 25 percent less surface and groundwater recharge by 2070 due to climate change.

“There’s so much secrecy and lack of information about the project,” Norm Gaume told Truthout. Indeed, a lot of the negotiations around the project have occurred behind closed doors. Gaume is a retired state water manager and now president of the nonprofit New Mexico Water Advocates.

“What is certain is two things: Global warming is taking our renewable water away. And Project Jupiter intends to use the least efficient gas turbine generators,” said Gaume. “Their emissions are just over the top.”

Massive Energy Consumption

The recent, rampant proliferation of AI in everyday life has prompted the swift buildout of enormous facilities to house the machinery needed to crunch extraordinary amounts of data — a process that requires enormous amounts of energy. Just how much?

The Western Resource Advocates, a nonprofit fighting climate change and its impacts, recently published a report showing how seven of the eight largest utilities in the interior West forecast an increase in annual energy demand of about 4.5 percent per year, driven primarily by the growth of energy-sucking data centers. In comparison, their annual electricity sales grew by only about 1 percent per year between 2010 and 2023. 

This week, over 200 groups from all over the country jointly signed a letter to Congress urging for a moratorium on new data centers until safeguards are in place to protect communities, families, and the environment from the “economic, environmental, climate and water security” threats they pose.

Project Jupiter is set to be powered by two natural gas-fueled microgrids. But air quality permits recently filed with the New Mexico Environment Department show the project could reportedly emit as much as 14 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, according to Source NM. How much is that? The entirety of Los Angeles, the country’s second-largest city by population, emitted just over 26 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2022.

Under state law, qualified microgrids won’t be required to transition to a 100 percent renewable energy system for another 20 years, Deborah Kapiloff, a clean energy policy adviser with the nonprofit Western Resource Advocates, told Truthout. “So hypothetically, up until January 1, 2045, [Project Jupiter’s operators] could run their gas plants at full capacity. There are no interim guidelines. There’s no off-ramp,” she added.

Furthermore, the region is already classed as a marginal “non-attainment” area, meaning it fails in part to meet federal air quality standards for things like ozone and fine particulate matter levels. And local residents are concerned about the addition in the area of noxious air pollutants — including PM2.5, one of the most dangerous such pollutants linked to serious health issues like cardiovascular disease — from the gas powered microgrids.

“Technically, the EPA could decline these air quality permits because we have such bad air quality already,” documentary filmmaker Annie Ersinghaus told Truthout. She lives in the adjacent city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and is skeptical the Environmental Protection Agency will intervene. “It very much feels like David and Goliath.”

Then there’s the water component.

Water Usage

According to online materials, the project’s data centers will require a total one-time fill volume of approximately 2.5 million gallons (which is the equivalent to the annual water usage of just under 25 households). Once operational, Project Jupiter’s data centers will use an average of 20,000 gallons per day (which is equivalent in daily usage of about 67 average households).  

This doesn’t appear to be a lot of water — some data centers can use millions of gallons daily.

Project Jupiter’s developers boast an efficient closed-loop cooling system. But Kacey Hovden, a staff attorney with the nonprofit New Mexico Environmental Law Center, warned Truthout that this type of cooling system hasn’t yet been used at a fully operational facility, and therefore, it’s currently unknown whether those projected numbers are realistic.

In the background lurks a rapidly warming world marked by huge declines in global freshwater reserves. Arid New Mexico is at the heart of this problem.

A comprehensive analysis of the impacts from climate change on water resources in New Mexico paint a picture over the next 50 years of temperatures rising as much as 7 degrees Fahrenheit across the state, and with it, reduced water availability from lighter snowpacks, lower soil moisture levels, greater frequency and intensity of wildfires, and much more aggressive competition for scarce water resources.

Gaume told Truthout the state needs to take every step possible to curtail water usage rather than add to its needs. “This is a pig in a poke,” Gaume said about Project Jupiter. “We’re living in a fantasy world where people aren’t really paying attention to water.”

The project’s potential impacts on the community’s drinking water supplies is further complicated by the fact that both will share a water supplier, at least for a while — the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority, which has long been marred by water quality issues, including serving water containing elevated arsenic levels to its customers. An Environmental Working Group assessment of the utility’s compliance records finds it in “serious violation” of federal health-based drinking water standards.

The utility’s problems have gotten so bad that the Doña Ana Board of County Commissioners voted in May to approve the termination of the joint powers agreement that created the utility. Exactly what will replace it is currently unclear.

Project Jupiter will supposedly contribute $50 million to expand water and wastewater infrastructure. But it’s also unclear exactly how those funds will be used — whether just for the data center or for the community as well — and when. Hovden described this promised investment as nebulous. “I would say that’s probably the best way to describe everything around this project,” she said.

Multiple messages to BorderPlex Digital Assets — one of two project developers alongside STACK Infrastructure — went unanswered.

Then comes the issue of groundwater, the region’s primary water source. Once again, there’s very little known about the sustainable health of the region’s groundwater tables.

“The horse is way out ahead of the cart in this situation, where we don’t really know a lot of the details of how this project might impact New Mexico, especially its water,” Stacy Timmons, associate director of hydrogeology at the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, told Truthout. She’s currently involved in a state project to better understand the status of New Mexico’s groundwater resources.

Community Pushback

Caught unawares by the speed with which this project was announced and is moving forward, community pushback is beginning to coalesce. At the end of October, the New Mexico Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of José Saldaña and another local resident, Vivian Fuller, against the Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, arguing that they had unlawfully approved the three funding ordinances. 

Ersinghaus is one of a group of local residents behind Jupiter Watch. They turn up at the construction site to monitor and track its progress, to make sure permits are in order (they often aren’t, she said), and to bring some “accountability” to the project. A large protest is scheduled for early next year, to coincide with the air quality permit decisions.

“Jupiter Watch came along very spontaneously,” said Ersinghaus, about the impetus behind the group in light of the hastily fast-tracked project. “Our commissioners voted for this [bar one], and we want them to feel ashamed.”

Saldaña said that he’d like regulators and politicians to halt the project and move it elsewhere. If they don’t, he speculated that he might pack up and move from the region he’s called home since 1980.

“In the worst case scenario, I’ll tell my mom, ‘Let’s move, let’s get the hell out of here.’ But I don’t want to move,” said Saldaña. His mother lives next door to him and he has many relatives in the area. “It’s sad. Very sad.”

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NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – Lawmakers created a special program in 2021 to help more New Mexicans voluntarily support solar projects—without needing panels on their homes or apartments. Now, nearly five years later, dozens of those community solar farms are finally coming online.

As of September, the first few solar farms connected to the New Mexico Community Solar Act have been going live, with almost 50 new community solar farms going up next year for El Paso Electric, Xcel Energy, and PNM customers.

Alaric Babej, Director of Customer Energy Solutions for PNM, said, “We are currently putting on the first bill credits on subscriber bills right now, so there are subscribers to community solar that are already receiving credits from PNM. So it’s a really exciting time to be in the industry.”

He said PNM is the first utility in the state to get community solar farms interconnected under the new program. “Community Solar is unique because you don’t have to actually put panels on your house. You’re able to get the benefits of participating in the solar energy industry without directly installing it,” Babej said. “And so the goal of the program is to open up those benefits to customers that couldn’t install traditional solar. So, for example, folks that live in apartment buildings, or maybe they’re renters.”

To take part, customers must contact a subscription management company. The state has vetted and approved five such companies. Ratepayers enroll and are set up with a subscription fee tailored to their usage patterns, based on previous yearly electricity use.

Credits appear on the utility bill before the subscriber pays their subscription fee. For income-qualified users, the credit can be anywhere from 20–30 percent of the subscription fee.

For example, if an income-qualified family typically pays $100 on their monthly electricity bill and then pays a $50 subscription fee, the credit could be around $70 (depending on the subscription management company). That would result in a net, monthly savings of $20.

The New Mexico Public Regulation Commission said that this discount will always result in net savings, and income-qualified subscribers may save up to three times more than non-income-qualified participants.

Income-qualified subscribers must make at or below 80% of the area’s median income.

Christian Casillas, Executive Director of the Coalition of Sustainable Communities New Mexico, said the state has tasked the coalition with outreach and education. The group is hosting in-person and online seminars about the program and how to enroll.

“Just as an example, if you’re living in Bernalillo County and you’re a household of two people, your income would need to be below $58,000 a year,” Casillas explained. “And if you qualify for that, then you should expect to see something like 15% to 28% savings in your electricity costs over the course of the year. And if you are not an income-qualified household, you should expect to see something like six to 7% savings over the course of the year.”

Casillas said the state hopes this first phase of solar farms will reach as many as 35,000 households—or roughly 10 percent of the state’s low-income population who would qualify. 

The program is open to more than income-qualified residents. Homeowners, businesses, schools, churches, and nonprofits can also participate.

Participants don’t have to live near the solar farm they are subscribed to. 

Troy McGee, founder of WattsUp New Mexico, a company helping connect customers to the state-endorsed program, said there are multiple reasons beyond savings to get involved. He noted that participating helps the state transition to renewable energy, and that developers have pledged 50% of farm capacity (and are required by statute to reserve at least 30%) for income-qualified ratepayers. “It’s the easiest way to save on electricity, you’re not switching providers. It’s an easy way to help other income-qualified homes. And it makes a ton of local jobs,” said McGee.

He added that there’s no risk of paying more in fees, subscriptions can be adjusted as household energy needs change, and there’s no cancellation fee.

McGee said building trust is essential in the communities he serves.

“There’s been a lot of scammy sales in the solar industry, so there’s a lack of trust, but I think when people know that we’re local and they talk with us, they quickly begin to trust us,” he said.

So far, the Public Regulation Commission said three community solar farms are live, 10 are expected to be ready by the end of the year, and approximately 47 more are anticipated by the end of 2026.

According to the Coalition, each five-megawatt farm creates a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the year that would be equivalent to removing about 1000 gasoline-powered vehicles. 

Cities getting one or more community solar farms interconnected with PNM:

• Alamogordo – 2
• Albuquerque – 1 
• Belen – 2
• Clayton – 1
• Deming – 6
• Las Vegas – 1
• Lordsburg – 3
• Los Lunas – 4 
• Rio Communities – 1 
• Rio Rancho – 1
• Santa Fe – 1 
• Silver City – 2 
• Tularosa – 5 

Cities getting one or more community solar farms interconnected with El Paso Electric:

• Chaparral – 1
• Las Cruces – 3 
• Salem – 1
• Vado – 1

Cities getting one or more community solar farms interconnected with Southwestern Public Service Company:

• Carlsbad – 1
• Clovis – 4 
• Hobbs – 1 
• Portales – 2 
• Roswell – 3

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A new conservation agreement will preserve land with breathtaking desert vistas that inspired the work of 20th century painter Georgia O’Keeffe and ensure visitors access to an adjacent educational retreat, several partners to the pact announced Tuesday.

Initial phases of the plan establish a conservation easement across about 10 square miles (26 square kilometers) of land, owned by a charitable arm of Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), on the outskirts of the village of Abiquiu.

That easement stretches across reservoir waterfront and native grasslands to the doorstep of a remote home owned by O’Keeffe’s estate, a few miles from her larger home and studio in Abiquiu. Both homes are outside the conservation area and owned and managed separately by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.

The view from the rangeland should be familiar to even casual O’Keeffe afficionados — including desert washes, sandstone bluffs and the distant mountain silhouette of Cerro Pedernal.

“The stark colorful geology, the verdant grasslands going right down to the Chama River and Abiquiu lake — all that just makes it such a multifaceted place with tremendous conservation value,” said Jonathan Hayden, executive director of the New Mexico Land Conservancy that helped broker the conservation plan and will oversee easements.

Hayden said the voluntary plan guards against the potential encroachment of modern development that might subdivide and transform the property, though there are not any imminent proposals.

Land within an initial easement has been the backdrop to movie sets for decades, including a recreation of wartime Los Alamos in the hit 2024 film “Oppenheimer, ” on a temporary movie set that still stands.

The conservation agreement guarantees some continued access for film productions, as well as preserving traditional winter grazing for farmers who usher small herds down from the mountains as snow arrives.

The state of New Mexico is substantially underwriting the initiative though a trust created by state lawmakers in 2023.

An approved $920,000 state award is being set aside for easement surveys, transaction costs and a financial nest-egg that the Presbyterian Church Foundation will use — while retaining property ownership — to support programming at the adjacent Ghost Ranch Education & Retreat Center and its use of the conservation area.

The center attracts about 10,000 visitors a year to overnight spiritual, artistic and literary retreats for people of all faiths, with twice as many day visitors, said center CEO David Evans.

Two initial phases of the conservation plan are part of a broader plan to protect more than 30 square miles (78 square kilometers) of the area through conservation easements and public land transfers, with the support of at least one wildlife foundation. That would extend protections to the banks of the Chama River and preserve additional wildlife habitat.

Many Native American communities trace their ancestry to the area in northern New Mexico where O’Keeffe settled and explored the landscape in her work.