Jobs, resources, and trust: the debate over Project Jupiter

Construction continues on Project Jupiter in southern Doña Ana County, but the argument over the massive data center has increasingly become less about whether it will be built and more about what New Mexico will gain, and what it will give up in return.

Oracle and Project Jupiter developers point to thousands of jobs, tax revenue already being generated and billions of dollars in projected economic activity. They also say they have changed the project to reduce its environmental footprint and are investing millions more in water conservation, renewable energy, carbon-capture research and community programs.

Opponents remain concerned about water, energy demand and the emissions that will come from powering the site. Underneath those concerns is another issue that has proved harder to address: trust.

Questions about how the project was originally presented and approved, nondisclosure agreements signed during its development, initially unidentified end users and changes made after approval continue to surface at Doña Ana County Commission meetings.

Commission Chair Manny Sanchez, who voted for the original industrial revenue bond agreements, said he doesn't regret that decision. But with the benefit of hindsight, he said the county might have handled parts of it differently.

When commissioners approved the project, Oracle and OpenAI had not been publicly identified as the companies behind it. Commissioners dealt primarily with Borderplex Digital and other project representatives. Sanchez said communication was a weakness from the beginning.

“I wish we had this level of engagement earlier on in the process,” he said.

He said Oracle has become considerably more responsive since taking a visible role, including answering county questions and providing information through its compliance staff. Sanchez said commissioners also knew the project would continue through additional state regulatory reviews after the county's action.

Still, he acknowledged commissioners might have written portions of the IRB agreements differently knowing what they know now.

“Looking back at it, maybe we would have done some different things on the IRBs if we had a different go at it,” Sanchez said.

Commissioner Susie Kimble inherited the controversy. She was appointed after the original vote and said the commission is now confronting questions that were not prominent when Jupiter was initially presented.

“In my opinion, from what I've looked at, it was presented, ‘Oh, it's going to be great. It's going to bring in this. It's going to help you with taxes,’” Kimble said. She believes potential environmental consequences received less attention.

The result is a project that has changed significantly while the debate around it has intensified.

Oracle abandoned its original plan for combustion-based natural gas turbines and switched to Bloom Energy fuel cells. Mahesh Thiagarajan, executive vice president of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, said the change will substantially reduce nitrogen oxide and carbon dioxide emissions from what originally was proposed while eliminating the continuing water needs associated with the original power system.

The data centers themselves will use closed-loop, non-evaporative cooling. Oracle says that, averaged over 15 years, water consumed by the cooling and fuel-cell systems will be equivalent to less than nine U.S. households over the same period. Drinking water at the site would be used primarily for ordinary employee needs.

But reduced emissions are not zero emissions, and that distinction remains important to critics.

Kimble said comparisons showing how much cleaner the revised design is than the original proposal don't answer the question she wants answered: What will the total environmental impact of the system actually be?

“Figure that out before you start turning it loose in the area,” she said.

She also expressed concerns about noise, light and the cumulative effect of operating a facility of unprecedented scale around the clock. Those questions will again move through the state regulatory process.

The New Mexico Supreme Court on Sept. 17 denied an emergency petition that had temporarily halted the New Mexico Environment Department's air-quality proceeding. The court's order allows the environmental hearing to proceed; it does not decide whether the permit should ultimately be granted.

Thiagarajan has said Oracle is confident the redesigned system will meet applicable environmental standards. Construction of the data center buildings has continued while the company awaits approval to construct and operate its onsite power system.

At the same time, Oracle has announced additional efforts aimed at reducing or offsetting Jupiter's environmental impact.

The company announced Sept. 8 that it will provide up to $1 million for research into whether carbon dioxide from Jupiter's fuel cells can be captured and either stored or put to commercial use. The research will determine feasibility; carbon capture is not currently part of Jupiter's operating plan.

Oracle also issued a request for proposals for 2 gigawatts of new renewable-energy generation in New Mexico, including solar, wind and geothermal projects, as part of its commitment to match Jupiter's energy consumption with carbon-free energy by 2031.

And once Jupiter is operating, Oracle says it will publish environmental measurements involving water, emissions, heat, light and noise on a public dashboard and commission independent assessments twice a year.

For Kimble, those are positive steps but not yet proof.

“I think that's great,” she said of the research and mitigation efforts. “But until it happens, the people are still saying, you're just talking.”

Thiagarajan acknowledges the credibility problem.

“Trust is earned through actions,” he said when discussing the company's new transparency commitments.

Oracle argues those actions have to be weighed alongside Jupiter's economic impact.

The company says nearly 1,000 New Mexico residents are already working onsite and the project has generated nearly $100 million in state and local tax revenue. It projects more than 7,000 construction jobs and 1,500 project-supported jobs once Jupiter is operating.

Oracle projects more than $4.7 billion in long-term economic impact. It also has committed $50 million toward local water infrastructure, $360 million in direct support for schools, infrastructure and local services, and $6.9 million for workforce development and community organizations. The larger economic-impact figure includes projected direct, indirect and induced economic activity rather than representing a direct payment to government.

Additional investments include college scholarships, support for Casa de Peregrinos and the Boys & Girls Club, abandoned oil-and-gas well remediation and a partnership with Arable intended to help farmers reduce irrigation use.

Thiagarajan said those pieces should be considered together — environmental impact, mitigation, jobs, taxes and community investment.

“It's an economic question,” he said.

Kimble, despite her concerns, also acknowledges the other side of that equation. Jobs matter, she said, particularly in communities near the project, and business organizations have strongly supported Jupiter.

“It's not really a cut-and-dry issue because there's so many different factors,” she said.

Water demonstrates that complexity. Oracle's comparison to nine households applies to water consumed by the long-term cooling and fuel-cell systems. It does not include all water being used during construction, including for dust control and other construction needs.

That distinction has sometimes been lost as the debate has moved from Jupiter's projected operational water consumption to water being used to build it.

The same is true of the larger argument surrounding the project. Oracle can demonstrate that Jupiter's current design uses less water and produces fewer emissions than its original design. Opponents can acknowledge those reductions while questioning whether the remaining environmental impact is acceptable for a project of Jupiter's scale.

And economic benefits that are already measurable — workers onsite and taxes generated — exist alongside much larger benefits that remain projections dependent on Jupiter becoming operational.

Sanchez believes some of the distrust now surrounding the project resulted from an information vacuum early in the process. The county didn't do enough to explain the protections it placed in the IRBs, he said, while project representatives were slow to provide information. Into that gap came information about other data centers that Sanchez said did not necessarily apply to Jupiter.

“We have not done a very good job of highlighting what we have done as a county with protections in place and how those will be monitored,” Sanchez said. “Now we're trying to fight from behind.”

Kimble sees much the same problem from a different direction. Oracle may be able to demonstrate that its revised technology works and that its environmental commitments are being met, she said. But after the way Jupiter began, simply asking people to believe those promises isn't enough.

“They're going to have to do the work and prove it,” Kimble said.

With the Supreme Court allowing the environmental review to resume, that process will provide another opportunity to test both sides of the Jupiter argument: whether a project of this scale can meet New Mexico's environmental requirements and whether its economic and community benefits ultimately justify the resources it requires.