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pantsforbirds | on: Americans don't know how to fight AI so they're fighting data centers
The mega-scale ones almost all have power as part of the ramp-up process. They are also a massive tax benefit.

Looking at the controversial Stratos data center in Box Elder County:

Box Elder County baseline (before Stratos): 2026 General Fund revenue: $36.1M 2026 General Fund tax revenue: $21.1M 2026 Municipal Service Fund: $18.8M

Stratos (Phase 1): Power: 3 GW Revenue expected: $30M/year Revenue as % of existing county tax rev: 142%

Stratos (Full Buildout): Power: ~9 GW Revenue expected: $108M/year Revenue as % of existing county tax rev: 512%

Planned power details: - Box Elder says it will use natural gas from the nearby Ruby Pipeline. - MIDA describes it as dedicated on-site generation designed to limit demand on the existing grid. - The project ramps from ~3 GW in Phase 1 to ~9 GW at full buildout.

I'll acknowledge that the MIDA structure is not a normal county tax bill and comes with explicit energy-rate discounts, but given that the county could hit 500%+ of its previous tax revenue, I think that's a very easy deal for the county to make.

Data sourced from: https://www.midaut.org/stratos

chasd00 | parent
I drove around the Stargate datacenter construction site in Abilene TX late April. They have maybe 5 or 6 of these large gas fired plants being built near the power substation. I'm not 100% sure what they are but i've seen the same things out in Midland/Odessa for power generation. I'm assuming they'll be generating electricity.

/the scale of that site is like nothing i've ever seen. 100s of those giant cooling units lined up and enough piping that my wife said it reminder her of the refineries on the TX coast.