Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/residents-cheer-as-tucson-rejects-amazons-massive-project-blue-data-center-campus-in-arizona/

by 01-_- • 12 months ago

58 40 12 months ago

datacenterdynamics.com

sitkack• 12 months ago

Good for them. No groundwater for data centers! Data centers should be run closed loop, if they can't, they shouldn't exist. AZ should also make them generate at least 70% of their power onsite.

belter• 12 months ago

No groundwater for data centers!

It's worst. They use tap water.

"...For the purposes of cooling, data centres mainly use potable water (water that is safe to drink or use for cooking, free from harmful contaminants). .." - https://www.twobirds.com/en/insights/2025/cooling-the-cloud-...

jeffbee3• 12 months ago

This particular data center was going to build a wastewater pipeline to cool their facility with currently-squandered wastewater.

bob1029• 12 months ago

I think the most cursed aspect in all of this is the fact that regions where evaporative coolers work best tend to have the scarcest water resources. Evaporative cooling is unreasonably effective when water is happy to evaporate. You can cut the power consumption of a datacenter by 70-80% in these regions if you are willing to sacrifice water.

I think in this case, solar energy is the best way to run the cooling systems, even if it requires an absurd amount of power to exercise compressors, etc. in order to improve heat concentration and rejection efficiency. As long as it's all green and theres a disaster recovery plan, who cares?

hooverd• 12 months ago

If you're doing large scale evap cooling in the Sonoran you're just removing water from an already stressed water table. I'd say put them somewhere cold and do district heating during the winter.

robotnikman• 12 months ago

Arizona has the perfect conditions for solar energy (sunny 99% of the time), they really should have taken advantage of that.

seemaze2• 12 months ago

Isn't effective evaporative cooling a direct function of low water availability i the environment?

jandrewrogers• 12 months ago

What should water be used for then? They do large-scale agriculture in the same area, which uses several orders of magnitude more water while generating substantially less value.

EA-31672• 12 months ago

Food that people and livestock eat is less valuable than data centers used to chase the "AGI any day now" pipe dream? You're kidding right?

cactacea• 12 months ago

Not near Tucson they don't.

seemaze2• 12 months ago

The water should be conserved to address long term water security in the face of a decades long drought and ongoing Tier 1 shortage. Tucson exists in an Active Management Area that heavily regulates expanded water usage for agriculture beyond existing grandfathered rights.

If a datacenter is a more valuable proposition (it may be?) then should have the ability to acquire and redirect existing resources being used for agriculture.

jeffbee3• 12 months ago

Please apply this rule to Tucson's 40 golf courses.

FirmwareBurner• 12 months ago

But where will the poor elites go hang out then?

pxc• 12 months ago

Most Tucson residents undoubtedly agree. The golf courses are almost exclusively used by rich out-of-town visitors

joshuaheard• 12 months ago

It was going to use 1% of the available recycled water. That's about the equivalent usage of a medium size farm.

actionfromafar2• 12 months ago

per year? Day? Month? Microsecond?

time_is_scary• 12 months ago

Update: Brendan Gallagher, Beale's SVP of development, said in a statement: “We are disappointed in the decision not to pursue this opportunity for Tucson. [...] We see it as a missed opportunity for the city, as this project potentially represents tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue, hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure to serve the community, and thousands of high-paying local and union jobs.”

and I'm "potentially" the next president of the U.S.

polski-g• 12 months ago

Datacenters do not employ thousands of jobs. They employ about 5.

UncleOxidant2• 12 months ago

and those definitely aren't union jobs.

philipwhiuk• 12 months ago

Long term yes. Short term thousands.

Mars008• 12 months ago

They would have to build a road to datacenter, datacenters themselves, all GPUs etc put together. That requires "thousands of high-paying local and union jobs" for short time. "hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure". Then a dozen of armed guards with dogs.

ofcrpls• 12 months ago

Visited NOVA recently and after Loudon let them pass under the radar(right by use) for as long as they have, they've recently to tried to put the kibosh on it, or at least slow it down.

https://virginiabusiness.com/loudoun-county-supervisors-shak...

What was once a rural county outside of Fairfax, Loudon has seen tremendous development thanks to data center expansion. Now Prince William County( one county over, westward) is trying to fight the same battle before it gets too big of a problem for them.

Mtinie• 12 months ago

I’ve lived in Loudoun County for twenty-four years, so I’ve seen much of the development firsthand. The data center expansion, particularly in Ashburn and Sterling, has been amazing to watch.

However, I’m puzzled by this portion of your comment: ‘…has seen tremendous development thanks to data center expansion.’

The major residential growth in Ashburn, Broadlands, Sterling, Lansdowne, and surrounding areas significantly predates the data center boom. These communities were already experiencing rapid expansion and large influxes of new residents well before the data center industry took off here.

jeffbee3• 12 months ago

Yeah, it was only farms in 1985. Now it's 95% residential sprawl and 5% data centers.

abnercoimbre• 12 months ago

The data center has been under discussion by local officials since at least 2023, according to emails between county administrators and real estate investment firm Diamond Ventures. The county has been under a non-disclosure agreement since at least June 2024.

That is insane. An NDA that the county was forced to sign? No wonder residents were outraged. I’m surprised this is legal.

Residents cheer as Tucson rejects data center campus

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