yall. i am so incredibly fucking pissed about the new 40,000 acre ai data center that was just approved in box elder county, utah. apparently they’re gonna use it for the military and to try and out compete china. and governor cox said that we have an “obligation” to let data centers like this be built. and obligation??? and this isn’t even the only proposed ai data center in utah, just the biggest one so far.
but that only scratches the surface on why im so mad about this.
that’s where my family lives. that’s where so many of my friends live. that’s where i live for 1/3 of my life!
utah already has so many climate issues that affect it right now. the great salt lake is already dying. there’s already toxic dust floating around in the air because the lake is drying up. the air quality is already shitty. the ecosystem is already dying around the lake.
adding a 40,000 acre data center just north of the lake will only exacerbate these problems. utah is in a drought. we keep hearing “pray for rain” (because it’s fucking utah) because there’s not enough water to go around already. how the hell do they plan to cool a giant ass data center? the water usage in ai in absolutely insane, and it is going to KILL utah.
i consider utah my home. and its beautiful. despite all of the things that i hate about it, i want people to be able to live and thrive there. and this ai data center will destroy utah.
