This week, the Pocatello City Council in Idaho will hear an appeal on a data center proposal it denied in May.
The contentious decision comes as data centers are sparking more protests in Idaho, Utah, and across the country.
Josh Johnson, central Idaho director for the Idaho Conservation League, said there is a dark side to data centers people are starting to recognize. Johnson pointed to energy use as a major factor contributing to the widespread opposition.
"It's not hyperbole to say that the energy use of data centers is unprecedented, in terms of the cumulative amount of energy that the data centers will use, but also how much energy a single massive data center can use," Johnson explained.
Johnson cited the Stratos data center in Box Elder County. Its developers predict it will need at least 7 gigawatts of energy, which is more than twice the current energy consumption of the entire state.
Pocatello’s hearing examiner denied a $2.6 billion data center proposal at a former polysilicon plant on May 14, saying Lex Developments failed to prove the project would not harm the community’s health, safety, or welfare.
Johnson noted water consumption is another major concern with data centers, especially in a dry state like Idaho, which often experiences extreme drought. Johnson said a medium-sized data center can use about as much water as an 18-hole golf course or a large alfalfa field, and newer closed-loop water systems can help reduce consumption.
Idaho’s Legislature passed a law this session requiring closed-loop systems, which use less water, over evaporative systems. Data centers opting to not use such a system must source their cooling water from a municipality or public utility, rather than groundwater or a river. Johnson called it a step in the right direction.
"As a starting point, we're glad that there's an interest amongst the state legislature to actually examine this issue," Johnson emphasized. "I'm sure they're hearing from constituents across the state, across party lines, about concern about this."
Idaho still offers tax breaks to data centers and advertises the state as an attractive place for data center development. Although legislation to end the incentives failed this year, Johnson hopes to see more of it next session.
"We should be not only dialing back the incentives for data centers to come here, because those companies have a lot of money — they can pay their own way if they want to build in Idaho," Johnson argued. "We also need to better regulate them."
Pocatello’s City Council will hear the appeal for the data center project on July 16.
