Oracle tries to appease Stargate data center opponents with renewables push
Renewables pledge won’t change the Oracle and OpenAI data center’s use of gas.
Renewables pledge won’t change the Oracle and OpenAI data center’s use of gas.
The short version
- Oracle’s proposed investment in 2 gigawatts of renewable energy projects for New Mexico comes as local opposition could delay development of the Project Jupiter data center that Oracle is building for OpenAI.
- Oracle and OpenAI had originally planned to build 2.2 gigawatts of natural gas generation that could have resulted in 14 million tons of CO 2 emissions per year, Thomas pointed out.
- That would have effectively “wiped out 20 years of carbon emissions reductions in the state of New Mexico,” he wrote in his post.
What happened
State residents and environmental groups have rallied in opposition to Project Jupiter with protests and lawsuits . New Mexico’s Land Office twice blocked requests to run a natural gas pipeline to the data center in New Mexico’s Doña Ana County.
Why it matters
Such opposition likely prompted the tech companies’ Project Jupiter plan to pivot from gas turbines to fuel-cell technology, which produces electricity through an electrochemical process without combustion.
Summary by Nerd News Network. Read the full article at Ars Technica via the links above and below.