Apparently, a 19-megawatt (MW) photo voltaic farm and a 167-MW AI knowledge heart are “considerably the identical” – a minimum of in line with the Trump administration’s Bureau of Land Administration (BLM).
The Trump administration has accredited what’s believed to be the primary knowledge heart on BLM-managed public land by transferring an environmental evaluate accomplished for a wholly completely different mission. The company didn’t conduct a brand new evaluate or invite public touch upon the swap.
Townsite Photo voltaic 2 acquired a federal right-of-way in 2023 to construct a photo voltaic farm and a 35 MW battery storage system on an 80-acre parcel inside the metropolis limits of Boulder Metropolis, Nevada – generally known as “the town that constructed Hoover Dam.”
In late 2025, the developer utilized to switch the clear power mission with an AI knowledge heart, and the BLM accredited the amended right-of-way on June 26.
The unique mission would have generated 19 MW of solar energy. The information heart will devour as much as 167 MW of energy, or sufficient to energy 75,000 properties, and have backup turbines. Boulder Metropolis has a inhabitants of 15,000, or round 6,600 occupied households.
To approve the change, BLM relied on a Dedication of NEPA Adequacy, which permits an company to make use of an current environmental evaluate when a brand new proposal is sufficiently much like what was beforehand analyzed.
BLM Las Vegas area workplace supervisor Bruce Sillitoe concluded that the 2 initiatives had been “considerably the identical,” citing their comparable acreage, boundaries, development timelines, and the scale and form of the buildings. BLM’s on-line mission file lists a choice file, a Dedication of NEPA Adequacy, and a growth plan for the information heart.
That reasoning has gone over like a lead balloon in Boulder Metropolis.
“We’ve had no conversations, there’s been no probability for the group or for the town to offer any enter to the federal authorities,” metropolis spokesperson Lisa LaPlante mentioned. “This feels so unprecedented for us to have a mission positioned in our metropolis with out the prospect to weigh in.”
Townsite Photo voltaic 2 had initially sought permission to construct on 88.5 acres of close by city-owned land. When it utilized to change the mission from photo voltaic and storage to a knowledge heart, Boulder Metropolis required the developer to start a brand new evaluate course of that included public enter, and the town’s Planning Fee voted 6-1 in opposition to advancing the proposal. Townsite Photo voltaic 2 then withdrew that software after securing approval for the adjoining federal website, lower than a half mile away.
The Boulder Metropolis Council voted unanimously on July 14 to attraction BLM’s determination to the Inside Board of Land Appeals and is looking for to pause the mission whereas the case is heard. Town says that regardless of being constructed on federal land, the information heart would nonetheless rely on native utilities, roads, and emergency companies.
Townsite Photo voltaic 2 says the information heart would use waterless cooling, draw energy from its personal renewable power sources, and fund native power and water initiatives.
Heatmap stories that Arevon, which holds a minority stake within the mission, employed lobbyists from the Bernhardt Group across the time Townsite Photo voltaic 2 started pursuing the swap. The agency is led by David Bernhardt, who served as inside secretary throughout Trump’s first time period. Arevon says it owns lower than 25% of the enterprise and didn’t rent lobbyists or consultants particularly for this mission.
Conservation teams are sounding the alarm that this approval has created a shortcut that may very well be used to show different clear power permits into knowledge heart initiatives with no recent environmental evaluate or public scrutiny.
“This was a bait and swap,” mentioned Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Membership’s Toiyabe Chapter. “If we enable this precedent to face, the concern is that this might promulgate all through not simply Nevada, however all around the nation within the curiosity of expediting knowledge facilities.”
One consumes power. One creates clear power. There’s nothing “considerably the identical” a few knowledge heart and a photo voltaic farm.
Learn extra: The Trump administration simply killed the US’s largest photo voltaic mission
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