Hotspots
More Turbulence for Washington State’s Giant Wind Farm
And more of the week’s top news around development conflicts.
1. Benton County, Washington – The bellwether for Trump’s apparent freeze on new wind might just be a single project in Washington State: the Horse Heaven wind farm.
- Intrepid Fight readers should remember that late last year Rep. Dan Newhouse, an influential Republican in the U.S. House, called on the FAA to revoke its “no hazard” airspace determinations for Horse Heaven, claiming potential impacts to commercial airspace and military training routes.
- Publicly it’s all been crickets since then with nothing from the FAA or the project developer, Scout Clean Energy. Except… as I was reporting on the lead story this week, I discovered a representative for Scout Clean Energy filed in January and March for a raft of new airspace determinations for the turbine towers.
- There is no public record of whether or not the previous FAA decisions were revoked and the FAA declined to comment on the matter. Scout Clean Energy did not respond to a request for comment on whether there had been any setbacks with the agency or if the company would still be pursuing new wind projects amidst these broader federal airspace issues. It’s worth noting that Scout Clean Energy had already reduced the number of towers for the project while making them taller.
- Horse Heaven is fully permitted by Washington state but those approvals are under litigation. The Washington Supreme Court in June will hear arguments brought by surrounding residents and the Yakima Nation against allowing construction.
2. Box Elder County, Utah – The big data center fight of the week was the Kevin O’Leary-backed project in the middle of the Utah desert. But what actually happened?
- In February, the Shark Tank celebrity investor’s venture capital firm formed a joint venture to build the 9 gigawatt Wonder Valley data center campus on the rim of the Great Salt Lake, boasting its proximity to existing natural gas infrastructure.
- O’Leary is developing the Wonder Valley project with Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority, a state entity in charge of real estate proximal to federal bases and other defense infrastructure. The data center is reportedly only a portion of an even larger tract of land MIDA is prioritizing for digital infrastructure entitled Project Stratos.
- This week, the Box Elder County commission unanimously voted to approve Project Stratos and therefore Wonder Valley. Conditions include a 55 decibel noise limit, “dark sky” light regulation requirements and a mandate that farmers can still grow crops or have animal grazing around the development area.
- Those conditions didn’t matter to the staggering number of protestors at the county commission hearing, clips of which went viral. Opponents’ biggest concerns have focused on the data center’s energy demand, which is almost equal to the entire state’s annual generation, and water usage fears given its proximity to the Salt Lake. (It’s worth noting the data center will get its power from energy generated on site, hence the gas-centric plans.)
- There’s no stopping Wonder Valley now – and the scene is growing more tense. We’re starting to see death threats against county commissioners and calls for boycotts against businesses linked to MIDA officials.
3. Durham County, North Carolina – While the Shark Tank data center sucked up media oxygen, a more consequential fight for digital infrastructure is roiling in one of the largest cities in the Tar Heel State.
- City councilors in Durham, the large city west of Raleigh, have enacted a two-month moratoria and discussed whether to ban data centers for up to two years. This move appears to be the first data center ban by a major city in North Carolina. It came right after Orange County, a large rural county adjacent to city limits, instituted a one-year moratorium.
- The site of Duke University, Durham has long been a tech research hub and is home to many data centers. However city leadership clearly has gone sour on the now politically-toxic sector. “We don’t have the space for it. And we don’t need it,” mayor Leo Williams reportedly said this week,
- This backlash was likely fomented to at least some extent by data centers playing a key role in the Durham area’s Democratic congressional primary earlier this year, in which progressive challenger Nida Allam failed to oust sitting Rep. Valerie Foushee, a more moderate politician. Allam campaigned on data center oversight.
- Our polling clearly shows voters overwhelmingly oppose data center construction in the Durham area.
4. Richland County, Ohio – We close Hotspots on the longshot bid to overturn a renewable energy ban in this deeply MAGA county, which predictably failed.
- Voters this week officially approved the moratorium at the ballot box. Solar and wind supporters have seized on the relatively thin loss in this Trumpian ag-dense county, noting it was by less than 10 points in a place that typically supports Republicans by wide margins. Others said the result showed evidence of bipartisan support for clean energy.
- I would like to offer a far more cynical take on this story. As I noted in my coverage of this ballot initiative, the referenda language itself asked voters to approve the moratorium – not to reject it – and so the ballot initiative created a positive news story for renewable energy bans. Local supporters can say voters themselves want the ban in place. .
- This isn’t going away, but if a ballot initiative campaign focused on landowner rights is unable to unshackle this county in an optimal national political environment… I’m unsure if a tactic like this can ever win in Richland County, sans substantial demographics changes.
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