An update on data center projects in El Paso

Today, a roundup on data center projects in El Paso. Construction is proceeding steadily at the two major data centers in El Paso, Metis facility in northeast El Paso, and Project Jupiter in Doniana County just across the state line. But new policies adopted by the city of El Paso this week could make it much harder, if not impossible, for another tech company to build a data center within city limits. And for Project Jupiter, The developers, including Oracle, promised to give $50 million to Doniana County to make badly needed improvements to the water infrastructure in Sunland Park in Santa Teresa. And we got some clarity this week on when those dollars will be available for officials in Southern Doniana County to start water-related projects. El Paso Matters Assistant Editor Pablo Villa will join me shortly to do a roundup on the data center projects in our region and what to know as we enter late July. First, this El Paso Matters podcast episode is brought to you by our podcast title sponsor, Tani Acosta Nchaparo, truck crash and injury attorneys. Their team of local, seasoned trial attorneys, are ready to help if you've been injured in a crash. And you can sign up for our newsletter or read our free reporting at El Paso Matters.org, where you can also learn about and register for our upcoming 9.15k run. Now, on to our conversation. Pablo, appreciate you joining me. Diego, very nice to be here. It only took a couple months, but I'm finally here at the big kids table with you in your new studio here. Yeah. So very, very happy to be here. Thank you for having me on. And we're actually here to talk to you, right? So. Artificial intelligence, AI, it's become one of the biggest forces shaping economic development here in the borderland, West Texas, southern New Mexico. And you've been seeing that play out in real time, right? You've been keeping the community informed about that subject for the past six months. Maybe even longer than that. Almost a year now. Yeah, yeah. So then you, of course, you've done a great job, you know, and you had a story that published this week at El Paso Matters.org that I encourage everyone to check out. You talked about one of the two massive. data center projects that are in development here in El Paso or in the region. And this is Project Jupiter, right? The one that's out in Southern Park. It's one that sparked a lot of questions or that has sparked a lot of questions throughout the last half a year or so. But your story this week focused on sort of an aspect that's often talked about and that's water. Right. Your story asks questions about infrastructure, public policy, and what this new industry data centers can mean for the region. And you focus specifically on southern New Mexico. So with that, I want to talk to you about that story, what you found out, and where we stand currently on that.

Anything you want to say before we kick it off? Well, I'll just say this, Pablo. If we were talking last summer, I don't think that I would have predicted that the following year, you know, the coming year would be filled up with data center coverage. I didn't have enough foresight to realize this was going to be like maybe the number one story in our region. So kind of interesting to reflect back on a year because I think it was last August that sort of out of the blue, we heard about this $165 billion data center in Santa Teresa on the park area. So anyways, man, it's gone pretty quick. I had a sunborn and still covering data centers. So here we are. Go ahead. I was just going to say, it really has been fascinating. Maybe that's the wrong word. It's just been intriguing to see how much has come to the fore since you started coverage on this. I think there's been a lot of... negative and positive feelings that have come about. And I just think that, you know, Passive Matters and you, to a large extent, have done just such a phenomenal job of keeping us informed on what's real and what's not, right? And we're going to continue to do that. You're going to continue to do that. And so, you know, we're grateful to you for that, for sure. No, appreciate it, Pablo. But to get to your initial question about the Project Jupiter update we did, so. One of the key elements of the project Jupiter deal, which was highly controversial, they got a large tax break that Doniana County Commissioners approved last September, like three or four weeks after the project was unveiled, basically, publicly for the first time. So it happened very rapidly. But one of the key aspects of the deal that was supposed to be like the tradeoff for the community and why to accept the project was that the developers were going to give $50 million to improve water and wastewater infrastructure, particularly in southern Doniana County, which really refers to Sunland Park and Santa Teresa areas that have kind of struggled with poor water infrastructure. The utility out there, the Camino Real Regional Utility Authority is like a very small utility. It serves about 22,000 people, had lots of problems over the last several years. I mean, it goes back. 15, 20 years, but more recently in the last three, four years, they've had issues with high arsenic levels in the water. You know, poor water treatment plants, poorly managed, poorly maintained, and so forth. And just kind of a bad situation with the water out there. And so this idea that really Oracle and its partner companies is a sort of web of companies involved with Project Jupiter. going to give $50 million, that's a pretty impactful amount of money. So, you know, we heard that last fall, and I've been wondering, like, what's up with that, right? What's up with this $50 million? When's it going to be available? The city of Sondland Park could use it as soon as possible. They have very, you know, aging pipes. It was a big deal for the city of Sondland Park recently. They got a million dollars, I think, like a federal or state grant to build a new water tank, you know, just like very basic water infrastructure that they're lacking. So I reached out to Doniana County and I said, hey, what's going on? with this $50 million fund. And I got a response that was somewhat alarming. And over time, I understood where they were at, but their first, their initial answer was like, we don't really know where these funds are. We don't know how to account for them or track them. And we're working with the state of New Mexico to figure this out. And I'm like, man, this is like 10 months since this deal was approved. You would hope in an ideal world that.

a local government offering some sort of tax break and incentive would have an idea of how, you know, the benefits they're receiving would be accounted for and tracked and so forth, right? Like how this would play out and how they would collect that $50 million. You'd hope that would be figured out like before the deal was approved, but didn't really seem to be the case. And I'll just take a moment. This gets kind of boring and complex, but the $50 million is not like Oracle placing $50 million cash on the table. It has to do with like... Oracle is receiving a certain tax break on a monthly basis. And so as that tax break accrues, the first 50 million, they're going to set aside for this water. And then after they accrue 50 million, they'll get this tax break, you know, back in their hands every month. So it's sort of like a fund that will accrue over time and during the construction phase especially. So it's a little bit complicated. And the state of New Mexico told me when I contacted them like, hey, Doniani County doesn't have apparently the knowledge of how to account for these funds and like, put this $50 million fund together. So I talked to the New Mexico Economic Development Department and they said, look, this is a special tax break tool. We've only used it one other time. We're kind of figuring it out, right? And so they said that already 25 million at accrued of the $50 million, which was surprising to me, that's a pretty good amount of money. Of course, I would ask, well, why isn't it already in Doniana County's hands? But the state said, look, half of it's accrued. The state and a Doniana County commissioner, they seem to think by early 2027, the $50 million will be sort of, you know, put together and allocated to Doniana County. And at that point, maybe we could see water projects proceed. And so that was really the finding that, okay, it seemed at first like Doniana County was, you know, sort of like clueless about this $50 million. I think that wasn't totally true. And they're sort of working through a complex process of accounting and so forth to... put this money into Doniana County Sands, and then from there into the city of Southern Park Sands. That's a real good encapsulation of everything you've uncovered in your reporting. There's so many aspects to this project that just... Just demand a lot of attention, right? But to get back to what you've talked about this week in your story, I think water has sort of become a real central issue in nearly every conversation about Project Jupiter. As you dug into your reporting, where did you find the debate becoming more nuanced than simply how much water is the status center going to use? Yeah, so of course the water usage of Project Jupiter as well as meta and any other data center in our region is like the number one concern people have. I think the developers of these data centers are aware of that and are done things. to like address the water usage for the most part, not that there aren't other concerns, but Project Jupiter has said, I think that it's going to use 20,000 gallons of water a day or, you know, I think a maximum allowable like 40,000 gallons. And there's some... complexity of like they're going to also buy some groundwater from a nearby sod farm that if the data center wasn't purchasing it, they would just be using the water to water grass basically. And so it's not like a net increase in groundwater withdrawals is what Oracle would say. Anyways, there's some complexities here, right? But Oracle says, look, our water use will be sustainable and so forth. But so obviously a compounding or sort of

complicating issue here is like the legacy of bad water right in that area. So if you're a resident and you go, man, we already have bare minimum water infrastructure. We've had a lot of issues with water quality. It's not a great look to, you know, allocate water to Project Jupiter. And so that's where this $50 million fund comes in, which the Doniana County has said they will give 10 million of it to Sondland Park. We can talk more about kind of the relationship between the county and Southern Park in a bit. But just like a sense of what where those $50 million funds could go to. Mani Sanchez, the Doni Annie County Commissioner, the first thing he brought up was like drilling exploratory wells to explore desalination. There's a certain segment of the groundwater that's a little bit salty. And so. I think they're thinking, hey, can we build a desal plant similar to the Kay Bailey Hutchison desalination plant that El Paso water relies on and then El Pasoans get water from every day. El Paso waters figured out desalination. It's a little bit expensive and dealing with the salty waste is a challenge. But Doniani County is trying to undertake that so that they can access, you know, maybe 6 million to 8 million gallons per day, which is a huge amount. Crua at the moment supplies like 2.8 million gallons a day, roughly, you know, maybe 3 million gallons a day. potential desalination plant could like double the water capacity in that area which would also go to industrial operators as well as homes and businesses but the point is this 50 million wouldn't fund the whole thing obviously it's probably would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build a desal plant, but it's kind of like the initial step to explore the wells, kind of see the composition of the water, you know, what it would take to treat it and things like that. In addition to desalination and exploring that, they talked about using the funds to, you know, they would give 10 million to Sunland Park, which I think would do things like, you know, just like replace piping and do very basic infrastructure things that need to be done for aging infrastructure. And then one of the other things that was interesting that Sanchez talked about as it relates to this water fund. was like, Say the county keeps $40 million and gives $10 million to Slement Park. What if the county set aside that $40 million and, you know, did things like maybe use it as collateral to borrow? So you could sort of get more money and then use that $40 million potentially as collateral. Or you could invest that $40 million and get, you know, a few percentage points of yield every year or something like that, right, get some investment earnings. The point being explore ideas, not that any of this is set in stone, but explore ideas to sort of make this water fund stretch further and, you know, accomplish more with it. And so, yeah, so that's really the tie-in, like,

Project Jupyter's developers say, look, our water use will be sustainable, you know, 20,000 gallons a day for our office, and also the water that they get from the sod farm. They say they'll basically, we'll have a one-time fill of several million gallons, several million gallons, and then kind of recirculate it. So Project Jupiter says, hey, our water use will be sustainable, and we're also going to get $50 million for a variety of water projects. And again, hopefully the funding will become available next year, and the county and Sondon Park can get going on some projects. It's interesting because as a journalist, as a reporter, I mean, all you can do is take these companies at their word, right? We're not going to be able to see any of these processes in action until they're actually being played out in real time, right? So I know there's a lot of questions that are raised by the community. And with that in mind, El Paso City Council recently approved some new policies related to data centers. Largely, those are probably more related to the city's dealings with meta. We have the big projects going on northeast El Paso. But can you tell us at all how much of that action was influenced by Project Jupiter? And what do those policies tell us about how local leaders are thinking about future AI development in our region? Yeah, so the city, like you said, they adopted this data center policy framework that we've known about for a few months. I think an interesting part of it as it relates to Project Jupiter is that a big part of the... the data center policies, the city adopted, which I'll enumerate further, but a big part of it is basically seeking from data center developers who potentially want to build in the city limits, hey, we need a community benefits agreement, right? So it's almost like the reverse, like rather than a tax break, like what meta got where the city's giving meta money and, you know, a break on taxes and so forth, it's kind of like, well, what can you, the data center company give us, right? Whether it's cash or whatever. And that's really what that $50 million fund. the water infrastructure fund that Project Jupiter developers, really Oracle, are giving to Doniana County, that's, I think, instructive for the type of thing that the city of El Paso would like to see if any other data centers come to the town. And again, it would be only within the city limits. I have big doubts about whether there will ever be another data center constructed within city limits for various reasons. Number one, just like the public pushback would be incredible. Number two, I don't know that there's like a massive thousand plus acre plot of land where you could do it. Is there a place that could accommodate a power plant, right? Sort of like Meta's building a, or El Paso Electric's building a power plant for meta right next door. There's like many reasons why I don't even know if these policies will ever. go into effect or take action because I don't know that we'll see another data center built within the city limits. Maybe I'm wrong. We'll see. But just an example of some of the other things city council adopted with these new data center policies was like number one, no incentives, no tax breaks for data centers, which I think kind of fits with the nationwide and state shift where a few years ago, you know, local officials in most. places in America were like, yeah, multi-billion dollar development, like, sure, we want that. We want, you know, you to pay taxes and whatever. We'll give you incentives. And I think there's been a real philosophical shift there. So the city says no incentives, no tax breaks. And then some of the other policies are like, if a data center wants to come here, they would have to get this new special permit. Whereas before, if a data center, it was kind of like, hey, you get this permit. As long as you're trying to build in an area zoned as like industrial, you know, manufacturing, like certain areas you're more.

less automatically granted a permit. Whereas now if a data center wanted to go, basically that permit would require city council vote to approve. So it would be very public and it would require elected officials to buy into it. I think another reason why I don't think a data center would be built here is for that reason. So I think this set of policies was kind of about like not enacting a moratorium like you've seen some other communities try to do. to, you know, some places have had success. Others have rolled them back after, like, legal threats from data center developers. So I think it, this is sort of stopping short of a moratorium, but I think it, in practice, could have a similar effect of basically preventing the development of another data center here. Of course, the public isn't really satisfied. A lot of the opponents of data centers say, hey, we don't care about future data centers. We want to, like, you know, prevent meta from building a data center here. Meta's almost, you know, they're well in the construction process. I think meta will continue as they have been, but I think a lot of people wanted to see, you know, the city somehow cancel the tax break for meta and kind of prevent meta from continuing. I don't know how possible that was. So anyways, yeah, there's a suite of policies, I think, that really could effectively prevent the construction of another data center within El Paso city limits. I'm glad you answered a question that I personally had, which is, you know, is there a sentiment of too little too late here? Because to your point, there isn't. that much space left for a hyperscale data center to come take root here. So do these policies even matter? Maybe they do, maybe they don't. I mean, that's not for us to decide, really, but it is just interesting how... This could just be a move that placates people who have opposed these projects. But they are in place now, you know, so we'll see how that plays out. You know where I think it could have an effect, Pablo, more so than determining the future of data centers. Like, there's elections coming up in November, right? And so I think there's a real political imperative to come out against data centers and be like anti-data center. You know, we've seen even Governor Greg Abbott a few, I don't know, like a year ago or a few months ago even was, you know, trying to make Texas like the AI hub. of America and like totally, you know, being friendly to AI developments. And then he comes out, you know, a month or two ago with like this ratepayer protection stuff and trying to, you know, posture himself as, you know, being skeptical of data centers and ensuring that they're not having negative effects on Texans, whether it's through utility bills or noise or whatever. And I think we saw a similar ship with Mayor Renard Johnson, right, who, I mean, I've quoted him in stories like where last fall he was like cheering meta's investment. Like, this is the future of economic development in the borderland, like stuff like that, right? Like that very much positive about meta's investment and very much like in favor of it. And then I think he saw Mayor Renard Johnson did, whether it was at the data center meetings the city had and just like all these different venues or people have shown up, you know, with the proverbial pitchforks out, like, you know, we don't like this. We think that this is going to threaten our water supply or foul the air in El Paso. Claims that I don't always know that are totally... accurate, but like there obviously is a lot of anger. And, you know, to be fair, like meta hasn't engendered a lot of goodwill in El Paso. And we can talk a little bit more about that. But yeah, I think Mayor Renard Johnson a year ago, nine months ago was very much in favor of data centers. His perspective has been like we want to bring commercial entities in to pay taxes, right? And so that, you know,

property taxpayers or, you know, homeowners are paying less than taxes and the businesses are paying more and so forth. And then it shifted really quickly. I think, like I said, after the anger at the meetings and it became very evident that there's a lot of people in El Paso very upset about data centers. And Renard Johnson switched pretty quickly to appearing as a skeptic, supporting this data center policy framework and so forth. So anyways. I don't know that there's going to be another data center come here where these policies will take effect, but I think at the ballot box, there will be an impact from council adopting these policies. Well, optics matter, Diego. They matter a lot, right? And they certainly shift, too. And so, I mean, and again, just to go back to something I said at the top is just the public really does benefit from... from your presence at all these meetings, and all our reporters at El Paso Matters, right? We're always, we always got our pulse on things, and that's really to the benefit of the public. So with that in mind, I know recently you had to take off your reporter had, because you moderated a public roundtable that focused on Project Jupiter. You had some... Focus on meta, actually. And on meta, right. And you joked afterward that it, you know, you had some choice words after that experience. Can you tell us a little bit about it? What happened? What was your takeaway? Yeah, well, just to start, I mean, I think the choice words were that it was a waste of time. But I wanted to get into this because I think it was a little bit illuminating about like the discussion and the debate here in El Paso about data centers. And so. Cynthia Boyartrejo, the city council representative in District 4, Northeast, that's where Meta's building. I think she's really gotten the brunt of like the complaints and the concerns and so forth from the public about this project. And so she has also, I don't know that she was ever like a big proponent of the data center, but she's really postured herself to be like a big skeptic of meta and trying to like, you know, get out in front of this and advocate for the public and address their concerns and things like that. So she organized this roundtable along with the mayor. And the idea was, I think it was like 14 people total involved in involving me, and it was 60 minutes off the bat, way too many people to try to involve in an hour-long conversation. But it was, you know, supposed to bring together the different parties here to like have just, hey, let's sit down, let's hash us out, let's talk about our concerns, let's have a good conversation, see where we can go. So, you know, META had some representatives there. There was El Paso Electric CEO was there. El Paso Water CEO was there. There was a union representative. Of course, unions like these projects. created a lot of union jobs. You know, there was like the head of the El Paso Chamber, like head for the Realtors Association, like many, many people at this meeting, as well as the mayor and represent Trejo. And then also some community members. There's like Veronica Carbajal as a community organizer as well as some residents in Northeast opposing this. So the idea was was cool, I thought, and I was actually asked the night before, you know, I wasn't planning on participating and I was. got a call the night before to moderate this, so I said, sure. And so I got there, and, you know, I want to get into, like, hey, let's not waste any time. Let's get into this. Let's immediately ask, like, we'll start off with the water, right? So what's up with the water use? Meta, how can you assure us that your water use won't, you know, be unsustainable or affect water supply for El Pasoans? And so I asked John Ballou, the CEO of El Paso Water. He had a whole series of poster boards and data points and all that kind of stuff, basically saying, hey, look, meta.

going to be less than 1% of our daily water usage or annual water usage. We can accommodate it and here's why and blah, blah, blah. And then it went to META and I said, hey, META, can you just talk about your water usage and how it will be sustainable? And meta started off by these two representatives by just reading this letter. And which I saw, it was like a written statement. You know, I'm thinking we're going to have this open discussion. You know, there's sort of a sense of goodwill. Let's kind of have this communal effort to arrive at a greater shared truth here. And, you know, just try to like hash out the concerns. I don't know that how interested meta was in that. They had their prepared written statement, which I really saw as like a filibuster, you know, waste some time, spend five, ten minutes reading this letter. Nobody gets anywhere. you know, we're going to be a good corporate partner and so forth, like, you know, just kind of talking points that don't mean that much, right, to people in the room. So, and it also illuminated for me how, so of course, some of the community organizers kind of would cut Meta off and they kind of were trying to ask meta questions and meta was very guarded and things like that. But it showed me how. The people who are skeptical of data centers and opposing them and have very valid concerns and justified concerns, when they're talking about it versus when, you know, Meta, El Paso Electric, which is essentially a partner in Meta's... Data Center, you know, the El Paso Chamber, like the business community, they're very in favor of this development. Like they're speaking completely different languages to each other, right? Like the, you know, the utility executives and some of the business people are talking about, like, we want to increase our commercial tax base and, you know, reduce the ratio of commercial versus residential property taxes and then we'll have more tax, you know, greater tax base and we'll attract more businesses and blah, blah, blah. You know, oh, and El Paso Electric, hey, we're going to, you know, make our system more efficient and we're going to increase our utilization rate because we're going to be selling, you know, using our power plants more to sell the meta. Like, who cares, right? These things that don't mean anything to people. And then the community members are saying, like, hey, what about all the noise and what about, you know, the air pollution that's going to result? What about the water use and things like that? And then, you know, meta will respond with this kind of like robotic answer that doesn't really address the question. So. Without going on and on, like, it was just, it showed me the disconnect that exists between the business community and the people that are in favor of these. And it's not that both sides are inherently wrong. I think they just have such like... They're just such an incredibly huge gap in their viewpoints and priorities and so forth that like it's maybe you're reconcilable, right? And they just have such a different starting point of the perception of data centers. And, you know, are they engines of, you know, tax revenue and some jobs? And like you bring in other tech companies and it's all this ecosystem or is it like this extractive?

trillion dollar company meta coming here and like taking our resources providing too few jobs how do you look at it you know um so it was just it was a waste of time in that um these in very large philosophical gaps were never going to be bridged in 60 minutes they might not be bridged in any amount of time um and i just think that uh the fact that meta and the city haven't held any more round tables i think um was indicative of the like pointlessness of it all. Very telling, huh? Very telling. Yeah, feet are dug in and they're not moving, right? Okay, so you've touched on Project Jupiter, you've touched on meta. Everyone's been focused on those. But another story that has been developing at Fort Bliss, right, our military post here in town. What do we know about the military's interest, the U.S. Army's interest in AI data centers, and how could that, how could a project there at Fort Bliss ultimately become more consequential for our region? Yeah, so we hear about this Fort Bliss project. We heard about it at first, I think, in April. And... kind of mysterious, right? Like, hey, you know, kind of, to me, like, everything with Fort Bliss is a little bit mysterious. Like, the Army, let's be honest, isn't too accountable to the public. Like, they're just kind of do their own thing out there. Not a lot of visibility for reporters anyways. And so, you know, I went down and I talked to some members of the Department of War to, you know, they're kind of talking about, hey, we want to, like, rent out part of our land to this company, Carlisle Group that's like this really big private equity firm. And Carlisle Group's going to build. the data center here. And so you go, okay, that's weird and interesting, but let me learn more. And so the army was very short on details, but a couple of the details I got out of that back in April were that, number one, the size of the facility would be three gigawatts, which is... You know, you throw a term out like, who cares? But El Paso Electric, just to put it in perspective, the most power that everybody from Hatch down to Las Cruces, all the entire El Paso Metro area out to Van Horn, all those people are customers of El Paso Electric. The most electricity they've ever demanded at one time, the most electricity El Paso Electric ever supplied was like 2.3 gigawatts, roughly, really hot summer a couple of years ago. So we're talking 2.3 gigawatts the entire, every home and business in the whole region was using. And Fort Bliss will use, this data center would use more than that, like, all the time. So, like, it's three gigawatts is like a big city's worth of electricity just for this one data center. So it's kind of a gargantuan scale. And they also told me, I kind of got the answer after a series of questions that they're... planning on powering them with natural gas turbines. And so, I mean, three gigawatts of natural gas generation capacity, like if you ask anybody in electric industry who are even like inclined to kind of downplay the negative effects of fossil fuel power plants, they'll say absolutely three gigawatts of fossil fuel power plants. We'll have a huge impact on air quality negatively, really impact air quality. And so, you know, I'm thinking, man, this is like more electricity than we all use in the whole region just here in Fort Bliss.

to be powered by natural gas turbines. We already have issues with particulate matter and other air quality issues here. It doesn't seem great. And so, you know, the months have passed now, that was three or four months ago. And no details have been released. I've reached out to the Army multiple times to get any sense of what's going on here. Basically nothing. They just say, hey, we know everybody's upset about data centers. This one's going to be great. That's essentially their answer. And so I've, you know, I'll just say this through conversations, through reporting, I've gathered that the Department of Defense, the Army hasn't had real concrete conversations with El Paso Electric to tell El Paso Electric, hey, we want you to build us so much generation capacity by X date. Like those conversations haven't really happened. And at the same time, the Army has said, we want this Fort Bliss Data Center to be operational before the end of 2027. So less than a year and a half from now. You know, I mean, it takes multiple years at this point to build a power plant. So I have big questions about like this timeline doesn't make a lot of sense considering like we don't even know any details about the project, really, other than those kind of basic ones I share three gigawatts, natural gas turbines. It'll be, you know, with this company Carlisle and the army wants to use the data center for whatever it may be, you know, AI targeting systems or for like bureaucratic stuff, whatever. So, okay, so not a lot of discussions with El Paso Electric. I think that could mean that by the end of 27, maybe they've just built like a tiny portion of it. They kind of plug it in, you know, put some solar panels or whatever. Like they just have a tiny part operational by the end of next year to say, hey, look, we brought this in our operation, you know, and then maybe we see it construction follow in the, you know, the years afterward. One thought I had, this is pure speculation, but, you know, our president, President Trump has at times, I think, I don't think he's had a lot of like respect for typical like institutional norms and processes when he has a big priority. So, you know, I thought maybe the president calls up the turbine manufacturers and say, hey, everyone who's in line to buy a turbine, move them back and put the military first or, you know, bad things will happen to you. I don't know. That's pure speculation. I just think the timeline communicated by the military was very confident. But it doesn't really match like the physical realities of building three gigawatts of generation capacity. I think it would take El Paso Electric till 2032 or 233 or something like that to build that much. So in 18 months, I don't know how it'll happen. But I'll just say like just to reiterate, I mean. I think that I had left open mentally the possibility that the Army would build a power plant for this facility, like somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, West Texas, to sort of like get around the pollution concerns. Like, hey, it's in the middle of nowhere. Nobody lives nearby there. Okay. But I think the transmission planning and building would take many, many years to do that. And so I really think at this point, the likely possibility is that we see a really, really massive amount of natural gas power plants or, you know, one big mega power plant built on Fort Bliss to power this facility, which I... certainly brings me some concern as far as the air quality impacts and pollution and so forth. I think that the Army has been like really adamant to say that the facility be water neutral. I don't really know what that means in practice. I think the desalination plant will play some role because it's kind of like the Army kind of has a stake in that as well. The Army gets some water from that. So I don't know. The water, I think the Army is kind of trying to get out ahead of any concerns about water usage. I don't think that they've really addressed any concerns about the air pollution that would result.

Not a lot of details, but that's kind of the rough outline of the project I've been able to gather. Seems like a lot of the details are to be worked out. One more thing I'll say on this. I think that we could get some details in October. The Army has got like a conference plan in Tampa, Florida, where the agenda material suggests they're going to lay out their sort of like AI strategy for, you know, AI data centers on bases around the country. So maybe in the months ahead we get some details. But at this point, I'm thinking about it as like a massive source of new pollution in the heart of El Paso, a little bit concerning. Very, very concerning. And, you know, if you want to be on the pro-Army side of things, I mean, Yes, you know, if you want the fighting force to be swift and agile and all those things that you want out of your army to be able to defend, you know, our rights and all that, sure, you want them to be on the forefront of technology and all those things. And AI is certainly that, right? It's certainly at the forefront of technology and our military needs to jump on it. Sure. At the cost of the public that surrounds these military bases? I mean, I don't know. You mentioned the three gigs of power. I mean, that's a lot of power. All localized in one place is certainly going to have ramifications for us. And definitely something that's concerning for me, and I certainly will be for a lot of other people. So, yeah, I mean, it's, you know, we play a role where we. you know, we're not partisan, right? And we're not necessarily taking sides here. But raising these questions is absolutely vital just for our health and our future, right? And you and I both have kids, Pablo. So, you know, certainly I don't want my kid growing up where, like, he's playing at the park and, you know, having asthma develop because it's poor air quality or whatever. And I'll just say, like, you know, I think the military has been generally, like the Army's been like a good partner with El Paso. We've kind of grown up together, right, Ford Bliss and the city. So I assume that there will be some consideration of these concerns. Of course, you know, the people that live at Fort Bliss cycle in and out. We all have to live with these concerns long term. So just something I'll be keeping a close eye on in the months ahead. Yep, yep. And it's another one of those things that could be impacted by elections two years from now, right? So you never know. You never know. But all right, Diego, thank you for all that. So just taking a bit of a step back. Do you think... We're witnessing the beginning of a fundamental shift in the way the borderland takes the approach to its economic development. I mean, we've seen manufacturing booms here in the past, logistics expansion, massive distribution centers, you know, the age of makilas, all that kind of thing. But is AI infrastructure becoming the region's next major growth factor? I have thought that yes, the answer to that question is yes. I'm increasingly starting to think, you know, it's a piece. It's not the main driver of sort of whatever our economic development looks like going forward. Obviously these data centers will be a big part of that because they're already in the ground. But I think the public backlash is such that if there was plans to build more data centers in El Paso, I think that those plans could be.

you know, done away with, right? And just, I think that the public is so against this that it's going to be difficult to like support our economy just based on data centers. But they will play a big role. And like right now there's like thousands of people, you know, working at these sites at Meta and at Project Jupiter. Anecdotally, I've had people say that like, you know, local like truck driving companies have had to pay drivers more because Project Jupiter and meta are like having hundreds of trucks in and out of their sites every day. and so they're paying these people really well. So, you know, like I guess that's like the wage effect. Of course, on the flip side, if you live nearby, like that probably isn't cool to have massive trucks, you know, driving through your community, whether it's in Santa Teresa or in northeast El Paso or Chaparral, New Mexico, just across the state line from MEDA. So, you know, it depends on your perspective. But yeah, you know, I think that obviously there's a big impact now when it's with all these thousands of construction jobs. And the big thing, too, is I've written a story about how META will be like the biggest taxpayer in the city and pay like 15 million in taxes every year to the city of El Paso. Project Jupiter similarly will pay like a flat $12 million in Doniana County every year in addition to this $50 million water fund. So they're going to be for like a local government perspective. I mean, these are revenue generation sources, whether that's worth the trade of the water and air pollution and so forth. Like people can decide for themselves. But. I think these will be a big part of our economy going forward. But I think that the opposition has become so intense that a future developer probably would just look elsewhere if we even needed another data center, you know, here. So it's going to be a big part. And I'll just mention, too, like there is the company Fervorit that's a company from California that located here to do like data center cooling solutions. So I know the city gave them some incentives to come here and create some jobs and stuff. So I think that the city is kind of pivoting its strategy away from data centers a little bit. I will say this too, the economic development team for the city of El Paso, like, Since the meta deal became so controversial and there was, I think, a realization that probably the city was too generous to meta in its incentives of 80% tax break for 25 to 35 years and then like 12.5 million to fix the roads. I think there was a realization that that was probably too generous. We probably didn't need to give meta incentives. And so since the public has become increasingly skeptical of the deal with meta, you have not seen the economic development team of El Paso who negotiated that deal. go to the public and answer questions and things like that. The elected officials on city council repeatedly say, look, this meta deal was approved before we were here. It wasn't our decision. You know, we're just living with it. But nobody ever manages like who is still there is the people in the economic development department who negotiated the deal. So yeah, I just think there's like it will be a part of our economy going forward. But I think everybody realizes like data centers are unpopular. Let's try to figure something else out.

Optics matter, Diego. Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Thank you very much for taking the time to illuminate us on all things, data centers. I know there's much more coming up in the coming months. I know you have a significant project you're working on that I encourage our listeners to keep an eye out for, but I also know that you're going to keep your eye on this for the foreseeable future. So, so definitely thank you for that. And thank you for letting me sit in the host chair in the new digs. Yeah, sometimes it's nice to be the one, you know, answering questions and getting to opine on things and not to ask questions. So I appreciate you taking the host time. seat pablo absolutely Diego anytime so thank you again and we'll do it again soon all right we leave it there thanks