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<title>Daily Cartoon 2: Friday, February 28, 2025 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Daily Cartoon 2: Friday, February 28, 2025

Employee kate meadows cropped

Kate Meadows

Government & Politics

Executive

A proposed 12-month moratorium on data centers in Cheyenne was rejected on a 9-1 City Council vote after nearly four hours of emotional, and at times angry, testimony Tuesday night. 

The discussion pitted data center workers happy with good jobs against local residents who are skeptical — and some fearful — of the impacts that rapid data center growth brings to the city. 

About half of those who spoke were in favor of the moratorium with the other half opposing it.

Throughout the marathon debate, Cheyenne Mayor Patrick Collins called for respect from the audience more than once.

“There are two sides to this story,” he said. “Let’s be respectful to both sides.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Union Workers Weigh In"}]

Marcie Kindred, representing Wyoming’s AFLCIO, the state’s labor federation, said a troubling narrative began to emerge after last week’s city planning commission meeting where the moratorium was discussed. 

The city’s Public Service Committee also took up the moratorium during a May 18 meeting and decided 

 on the moratorium either way to the council.

“The community on one side and pro data center big-tech billionaires and unions on the other,” Kindred said.

Union members are also Cheyenne residents, she said, adding they are taxpayers who live here and love Wyoming.

“Our opposition to this moratorium is not a broad endorsement of AI,” she added.

She addressed concerns about artificial intelligence and the threats that data centers pose to workers before saying that fight belongs in Washington, D.C., not in a city council meeting.

Do we want economic development done right, under Wyoming standards, or do we hand it off to someone with a rubber stamp and no safeguards? she asked.

“These workers are here today because they know what a pause really means,” she said about the strong turnout to oppose the moratorium. “It means in a few months they’ll be back out on the road answering the nearest work calls, sleeping in a hotel instead of in their own beds.”

These data center projects have allowed people to put down roots and dream a little, she said, adding that, “A moratorium does not protect our community.”

Matthew Miles introduced himself as a pipefitter from Cheyenne and said most of the men in the union he belongs to he met in South Dakota.

“Until Meta ramped up and brought all of us home, all of these guys were in a completely other state away from their families,” he said. “A moratirum will force these companies to go somewhere else. 

[{"type":"text","text":"\"All it will do it hurt the local workers you see tonight.”"}]

Truett Thompson, president of the Local 415 electrical workers union, said a pause on data centers means a pause on economic growth.

“We believe we’re at a crossroads at the future of our community’s infrastructure,” he said, adding that members of his union are enjoying good-paying jobs because of the local data center buildout.

David Richardson called a moratorium “a stop sign in the road for the middle class.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Paid To Be Here?"}]

Not everyone was convinced the workers represented the broader community.

A Cheyenne resident who identified himself only as Adam clutched a yellow index card with a shaky hand.

“Everyone here who is opposing this moratorium are literally being paid to do so,” he told the council.

Adam added that as soon as the projects are finished, the workers will be gone. He referred to the data center workers as “transient residents,” saying if we had local workers, we would not need a huge proposed 

“The permanent residents by and large do not want these data centers,” he said.

Others countered that the industry has already created long-term local careers.

Shawn Broad, an employee of Microsoft who received training at Microsoft’s data center academy, assured the council he was not paid to be at the council meeting. 

He said he grew up in Cheyenne and immediately left because he didn’t see a future there. A job at Microsoft allowed him to return to his roots, he said.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Quality Of Life"}]

For many speakers, the discussion came down to competing visions of Cheyenne’s future and what kind of quality of life residents want to preserve.

Ryan Blue, a Cheyenne resident and data center technician, said that his data center job "financially changed my life.”

[{"type":"text","text":"“Your whole life anymore runs on a data center,” he added."}]

Elizabeth Marvin said she fought “tooth and nail” to get back to her home state of Wyoming, yet the Wyoming she moved back to is not the Wyoming she grew up in.

“I brought my kids with me,” Marvin said through tears. “As soon as I got back, I learned that there were data centers going in south of my neighborhood.”

Marvin likened Cheyenne’s data center boom to the uranium mining boom in Jeffrey City, which lasted from the late 1950s through the 1970s.

Jeffrey City grew large enough to support an Olympic-sized swimming pool, Marvin said. “Then, the workers ran away from the radiation.”

Anne Domas didn’t mask her disdain for data centers, and accused the council of being “the pimps prostituting our resources.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Pause Is Not A Stop"}]

Supporters of the moratorium repeatedly emphasized that a moratorium would be temporary, not permanent.

Jimmy Chiro, a candidate for a Ward 1 City Council seat, spoke in favor of the moratorium, saying a one-year pause is not asking a lot.

[{"type":"text","text":"“It’s not going to stop their work,” he said. “It’s a pause.”"}]

Richard Lyle suggested a moratorium won’t slow AI technology and will only drive it offshore.

Several people said their biggest frustration has been what they see as a lack of information and transparency when it comes to data center development.

“The community is a little scared over what’s been happening, and that’s because we’re not getting answers,” said Cheyenne resident Heather Madrid.

Dominic Syracuse, who introduced himself as a comedian and positive psychologist, spoke about the existential threat of artificial intelligence.

“Unfortunately, nothing I have to say today is at all funny or positive,” he told the council.

Syracuse said he leads a workshop across the country called “Staying Human in the Age of AI.”

He said Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, has given AI a one-in-five chance of creating human extinction.

If we continue data building center rapidly, we are facing a severe existential threat, Syracuse said.

Cheyenne resident Michelle Cobb, who works in the construction industry and admitted she has profited from data centers, spoke in favor of a moratorium “so we know exactly what is coming to Cheyenne.”

Resident Patricia McCoy suggested the moratorium was an opportunity for the council to effectively communicate with residents.

“The people who put you in your position are terrified,” Elizabeth Marvin said. “That should mean something. We don’t want to be Silicone Valley.”

[{"type":"text","text":"Chris Camargo pleaded with the council to approve the moratorium."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“That’s all they’re asking for,” he said."}]

Exie Brown, who is running for state House District 9 from Cheyenne, spoke about the national security aspect to data centers, saying, “There is a risk to having all your assets in one location.”

Having so many data centers in one concentrated area increases vulnerability, he said, and makes Cheyenne a target-rich environment for bad actors.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Before The Discussion …"}]

Tensions over data centers surfaced even before the moratorium agenda item came up.

Several residents objected to a proposed rezoning classification affecting land in the Cheyenne Business Park and Campstool Business Park.

The land in question is currently zoned as light industrial, heavy industrial and community business. Changing the zoning to Business Park would relax landscaping requirements, a move that drew expressions of mistrust from the crowd.

“Why are we fast-tracking this rezoning while the moratorium is still on the table?” asked Charles Miller.

[{"type":"text","text":"He requested the rezoning decision be postponed."}]

“Rezoning anything is a bad idea right now,” said a woman who identified herself as Christine.

[{"type":"text","text":"“I don’t trust any of this,” said a Cheyenne resident named Lilia."}]

“We’ve got data centers knocking at the door,” said Jesson White. “Not to bring that up early, but that’s why we’re all here.”

The mayor explained that with the business park areas zoned as they are now, day care centers aren’t allowed in the area. If you want other support businesses for folks in the business parks, this would allow those businesses to be there.

The council has been working for a few years to make it easier to allow other types of businesses to set up shop in these business parks, Collins said.

“So it’s strictly coincidence,” Jesson replied, eliciting laughter from the audience.

[{"type":"text","text":"The mayor called for order."}]

“Now we want to relax the rules?” White said. “That’s ridiculous. That’s absurd.”

[{"type":"text","text":"People clapped as White sat down."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"Again, the mayor called for order."}]

“I appreciate everyone being here and being respectful this evening,” he said.

Betsey Hale with Cheyenne LEADS addressed landscaping in the business parks as a matter of maintaining order and consistency.

“I would hope folks don’t think the only businesses in Cheyenne are data centers,” Hale said. “Not everything that’s happening in Cheyenne is for data centers.”

Councilwoman Dr. Kathy Emmons spoke to the business-friendly culture of Cheyenne.

“What we hear is, we want to come here and we have unmanageable restrictions to come here,” she said. Looking to the audience, she added, “You can shake your head all you want. It’s true.

"We’re hearing, ‘Don’t make everything so restrictive that it’s not business-friendly.’ There is nothing nefarious in this,” she said.

[{"type":"text","text":"The zone change was approved on second reading."}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"The Council’s Turn"}]

Councilman Mark Moody, the author of the moratorium ordinance, thanked everyone for voicing their opinions.

“I want to be clear: I’m not against data centers,” he said. “But we have to think about it. Can we have 40-70 data centers? How are we going to expand if we’re surrounded by data centers?”

[{"type":"text","text":"Emmons spoke to a world that’s evolving."}]

“Technology is evolving,” she said. “There are scary things out there. Nobody can say there’s not. We can continue to do our due diligence and will continue to make sure we are maintaining a safe environment. We all live here, too.”

Dr. Mark Rinne asked why the council should spend taxpayer dollars on a study when we can look back to 14 years of data center experience in Cheyenne.

The council voted 9-1 against the moratorium, with Moody being the sole “yes” vote.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Many Moratoriums"}]

Cheyenne’s debate over whether to halt data centers mirrors a broader national conversation unfolding as communities grapple with the explosive growth of artificial intelligence infrastructure and the enormous power and water demands tied to hyperscale data centers.

On May 19, the Denver City Council unanimously approved a one-year freeze on new data centers tied to cloud computing and digital storage. The measure took effect May 21.

The Denver area already hosts roughly 50 data centers, and residents there raised concerns similar to those voiced in Cheyenne — including water use, noise and strain on local infrastructure.

Lawmakers in at least 14 states have recently introduced or considered legislation aimed at slowing or temporarily pausing new data center construction while governments study long-term impacts on energy grids, water supplies and community growth.

Marcie kindred data center meeting inset 5 27 26

<title>Full Speed Ahead For Cheyenne Data Centers As Council Rejects Moratorium | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A 12-month moratorium on data centers in Cheyenne was rejected on a 9-1 City Council vote after hours of emotional, and at times angry, testimony Tuesday night. “The people who put you in your position are terrified,” one resident told the council. 

Full Speed Ahead For Cheyenne Data Centers As Council Rejects Moratorium

Mac Watson

Daily Video News

It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Wednesday, May 27th.  I’m Mac Watson.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"},{"type":"italic"}],"text":"–"}]

Fifth-generation Wyoming rancher Trenton Thornock pitched a huge 1.2 gigawatt data center on family land to a skeptical Evanston crowd on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Renee Jean reports that the project is facing a rising tide of opposition against data centers locally and across Wyoming.

“Prometheus Hyper Scale, unlike a lot of the other data centers, you know, they have made that public commitment to community engagement, and so what this meeting was all about was answering the public's questions here in Evanston, it was at times an emotional meeting, a little unruly at times. There were some people in the audience, who just yelled out questions whenever, who would challenge answers and basically say ‘You're lying!’ There was one person who accused Trenton Fornock of being a sellout because he lives in Texas right now. For the most part, though, it was a pretty civil meeting.”

Thornock says he started his company in 2020 with the idea of first innovating water cooling systems and doing things in a more sustainable way and second impr oving the economy of his home state. Wyoming has struggled with outmigration of its youth, losing most of them by age 30 to other states. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"–"}]

A fire tore through an under-construction apartment building in north Cheyenne on Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johnson reports that one witness says the burning was so intense, the building was “a total loss” in minutes.

“He said within 10, 15 to 20 minutes it went from just seeing some flames to pretty much being a total loss, and it had been collapsing on itself. While it was burning, they could hear explosions coming from inside the building. Being under construction, there's all kinds of tanks and things with whether you're welding or paint or anything like that. So, whatever they had in there, he said they could hear it popping off.”

The under construction building is in the Ridgeview Apartments located at 2025 E. Carlson St. just off Converse Avenue between Sam’s Club to the south and Storey Boulevard to the north.

State Rep. Mike Yin argued against a proposal by Chuck Gray to ban political party changes after Jan. 1st in election years. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports Yin wants to know why Gray is making it harder for people. Gray says it’s an election integrity issue.

“So, what the committee majority, not Mike Yin and not a few others, decided was they're going to ask staff to draft a bill that is going to ban party changes for like three quarters, nearly three quarters of an election year, and so they did that. So now staff is going to build that draft, and then at a later meeting of the committee, probably September, people can come and comment, and they'll decide at that point or later whether they want to adopt the bill, which would give it an edge going into the 2027 lawmaking session, if they do.”

The Legislature in 2023 passed a bill banning voters from switching parties between about mid-May and the primary election in mid-August of each election year. 

Two hikers on a multi-day excursion were helicoptered to safety by Teton County Search and Rescue after becoming ill on Monday. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that one rescuer says,  “It sounded like they weren't prepared to hit as much snow as they did in the high country.

“In this case, it wasn't a lack of experience or preparedness. The group knew that they were going to be encountering snow in high elevation on the Teton Crest Trail, and planned to be there for several days, but there was more snow than they anticipated, and they didn't find water to replenish their stores, because getting water off of smelting snow pack is not a bad way to work around carrying water on a trail like that, but in this case, there was a lot of snow, and not a lot of readily available water.

At one point, the hikers even tried to boil snow to get water, but the National Weather Service says that one inch of liquid water is equivalent to 12 inches of snow, and even though they tried, they just didn't have enough to hydrate all four of them.

I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.

After losing both of her siblings to a male grizzly’s attack last spring and then splitting from her mother at an unusually tender age, the young grizzly named Miracle hadn’t been seen this spring. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that all changed when the bear showed up at Colter Bay on Sunday.

“That's almost the exact same spot she was seen almost in exactly a year earlier, and I talked to a bear biologist up in British Columbia, who, who said, yeah, that tracks, because, especially with female bears, they'll establish a range and they'll establish routes to get around, and the person who took the video said it really seemed like she was, she was coming from from one wooded area, trying to get to another wooded area, in other words, she wasn't interested in hanging out in Colter Bay. She was just making that her route through, and the biologist said, ‘Yeah, that makes sense.’” 

Wildlife photographer Marcela Herdova tells Cowboy State Daily that the 2.5-year-old Miracle appears to be in good health.

A Casper man who admitted being a serial arsonist and starting numerous fires got 6-12 years in prison Tuesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that Dallas Smith sought probation instead of prison time, but the judge wasn’t having it.

“He apologized for his actions, said that he knew that he caused some people some financial pain, and he had said in an affidavit that he had started the fires to get rid of the pain. So he asked the judge, and his defense attorney asked the judge if he could get probation and serve time at a place in Sheridan, and the judge was not going to go along with that. She said, "First degree arson, we're not going to do any probation with that.”

Natrona County District Court Judge Kerri Johnson sentenced Smith to the six to 12 years, and he was sentenced to time served 270 days for three other counts of arson that were part of the plea deal.

Wyoming biologists say a wolverine that had a rare close-range encounter with a hiker in the Wind River Range mountains is the same animal they’ve been tracking for more than a year. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that the animal has a huge range, being tracked over 200 square miles.

“That's typical for wolverine range, 200 or even more. They are wide-ranging animals. The running joke, or the way I put it is, even a lot of wolverines isn't a lot of wolverines, because they are very typical, very typically solitary animals that have gigantic ranges and just don't have much to do with each other, so they're, they're not, it's not like elk, they're very widely dispersed animals, so it makes sense.”

The wolverine that Zachary Shifrel photographed from 

 is a mature, 28-pound male, who was collared back in 2025, so say biologists Dean Clause and Rusty Kaiser.

Wyoming meteorologist Don Day is skeptical about a popular weather forecasting website’s prediction of a wetter-than-normal summer. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Day says Wyoming is a huge state for this kind of forecast.

“The website Open Snow published their summer 2026 forecast in terms of temperature and rainfall, and they have above average or above normal rainfall for the entirety of Wyoming and portions of 12 other states. So I spoke with Cowboy State meteorologist Don Day about that. First off, he was skeptical because it's open snow. He said that they can be very ambitious with long-range weather modeling.”

Day tells Cowboy State Daily that Wyoming isn't a one size fits all state, so even if some places do see above normal precipitation for summer, that doesn't mean it's a blanket statement that's going to cover every spot in the Cowboy State.

And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on 

 - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our 

 channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app.  Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.

News image play 5 27 26

<title>Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Wednesday, May 27, 2026 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Wednesday's headlines include:
* ‘Miracle’ Bear Is Alive And Well
* Tense Data Center Meeting In Evanston
* Cheyenne Apartment Fire Is ‘Total Loss’

Cowboy State Daily Video Newscast: Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's business and tourism reporter, Renée Jean

Renée Jean

EVANSTON — Prometheus Hyperscale laid out a vision for its massive 1.2 gigawatt data center campus on a ranch east of town owned by native Trenton Thornock. It’s a place where cattle still graze and the residents prize open country and sky.  

That includes Thornock, the fifth-generation ranching family member told a packed room of Uinta County residents, many of whom are wary of becoming the next front in Wyoming’s data center boom.  

“Our family ranches here, and my great-great-grandmother homesteaded here down Bear River back in 1869,” Thornock said. “I started the company because I saw two things that were wrong with the data center industry. 

"They’re using way too much power for the amount of compute that they’re getting out and they’re using way too much water for cooling.”

Thornock said he started his company in 2020 with the idea of first innovating water cooling systems and doing things in a more sustainable way and second improving the economy of his home state.

Wyoming has struggled with outmigration of its youth, losing most of them by age 30 to other states. 

It’s a dynamic Thornock, as an Evanston graduate, said he's all too familiar with. He knows plenty of his Wyoming classmates who wanted to stay in Wyoming, but couldn’t find high enough paying jobs to support a family.

His thought was that data centers could be part of a new story that changes that dynamic.

That’s one of the reasons he settled on a “bring-your-own-power” approach. Because of severance taxes paid on every molecule of natural gas used, that would be the best way, he figured, to support the state.

“Instead of exporting all of this economic value from the gas that’s produced here in Wyoming like we’ve always done, the point is to consume that here, do the compute here, have the property taxes from these facilities here to support our tax base, to support our schools, and all the other county services,” he said. “That’s my reason for doing this project.”

Thornock’s data center would be built on family-owned ranch land near the Silver Eagle refinery.

This, he added, is not a case where some billionaire from far away is coming to buy up Wyoming land. This is a born-and-raised Wyomingite, wanting to make a difference for his home town.

Prometheus Hyperscale has faced a rising tide of opposition against data centers amid broader concerns gripping the state, following a surge of as many as 70 data centers headed for Cheyenne. 

The meeting Tuesday was informational to answer questions from Uinta County residents about the company’s plans — and they had plenty.

It wasn’t just the usual gamut of water and power use issues. 

People wanted to know who the tenants were, who would be minding the man camps and policing any crimes, whether public officials have signed any non-disclosure agreements, and whether there are any federal, state, or local subsidies, tax abatements, or special utility deals. 

As far as tenants, Thornock said he’s not able to reveal the tenants just yet because they’re not yet ready to go public.

However, he would say that he’s signed a binding agreement with a tenant that restricts future owners of the facility.

“It will not be sold to certain types of entities,” Thornock said. “And there are at least five Chinese names on that list.”

Thornock revealed that he’d gone through a full-blown process early on to bring in a tenant, and ultimately had to reject the contract when he learned that the tenant would have been Chinese-owned ByteDance. 

“So we’ve waited two more years to get to someone we think is the right person to have in this county,” he said. 

 ties to the World Economic Forum, as well as his ties to Blackrock, his involvement in environmental, social, governance (ESG) measures during his tenure as CEO of BP.

Thornock had to say, more than once, that he hasn’t requested any abatements, nor is he accepting any government funding. Looney, he explained, made a better CEO than himself for the sake of name recognition.

“No one knows who Trenton Thornock is on Wall Street,” he said. “They don’t care who I am. The CEO of the company, Bernard Looney, everyone knows him. Jamie Dimon knows him. The head of Blackrock knows him. He’s the reason we had a CEO change, to go raise the money for private markets.”

All of the equity, all of the debt, will be raised from private investors using a bond offering that will be managed by Morgan Stanley.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Not Remote Jobs"}]

Uinta County Commissioner Mark Anderson told Thornock and his team that he’d been engaging with local residents for the past two weeks, and that he had a long list of questions from them. 

Chief among them was whether the 200 long-term jobs the data center projects it will have once operational will be actual jobs for people residing in Uinta County.

“Or will these be jobs created for somebody to sit and operate remotely?” Anderson asked.

The jobs will not be remote, Anderson was told, and the company is taking extra steps to try and hire as many people locally as possible.

“The way we’re going to do it here is that we’re first going to post all these jobs locally so that we can pull all the talent that’s here or people who are interested in getting a job there,” Thornock said. “And I can tell you what the wages are, because they’re kind of the same across the industry. 

"These 200 jobs range from $75,000 a year on the low end to about 150 on the high end. They’re good jobs … and these jobs will come with all the benefits. You’ll have bonus, you’ll have overtime, vacation, full healthcare, 401K — all the things that you want that I don’t have working for a startup.”

The data center will bring “a lot of advancement in the learning and the workforce,” Prometheus Head of Construction Ahmed Anwar said. 

“When you talk about direct construction, we’ll need electricians, we’ll need pipefitters, we’ll need ironworkers,” he said. “Pretty much any trade that supports an oil and gas field, any type of power plant project, those are the same types of trades that we’re looking for as we build data centers.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Minimizing Water Use"}]

In a state where ranching and water rights are existential issues, residents pressed hard on water use and power use. 

Thornock spent the most time addressing questions about those issues, explaining that his data center will use a closed-loop, liquid cooling system similar to the radiator of a car.

Unlike the radiator of car, the cooling loop for the data center will be filled with a propylene glycol water mixture referred to as PG25. 

Propylene glycol is an additive that’s been generally recognized as safe by the Food and Drug Administration for food, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. 

It has a variety of uses including as an anti-caking agent, as well as an emulsifier or stabilizer. It’s also useful as a humectant — absorbing and retaining moisture — which helps keep baked goods fresh and soft.

PG25 is good for around six years, after which it requires recharging. That will be done off-site by a chemical supplier, which will manage trucking the fluids in and out of Wyoming. 

The spent fluid will not be released into local well water. It will be drained and sealed into 1,000-gallon drums or containers and shipped off either for recycling or disposal in a Class VI well.

The only well water the site will use is for domestic uses such as employees washing their hands when they use the restroom.

The company also promised it would report daily water extraction from its wells on a portal, so that residents can track usage.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Staying Off Grid"}]

As far as energy, Prometheus is proposing a fully off-grid power strategy that will be built around on-site natural gas generation through the Kern River pipeline, which already loops through that area.

“Because we’re not connecting to the grid, there’s zero impact on your rates, because we are not connecting to Rocky Mountain Power,” he said. “The rules in Wyoming are such that we can consume our own electricity on site, and we’ll have to abide by all regulations.”

The type of power generation will be natural gas reciprocating engines, which Thornock said will use very little water. 

“We’re talking about, on a per engine basis, a couple of Yeti cups per day,” he said. “So it’s not significant. And when we get to the larger turbine generation, those will be cooled with dry coolers, similar to the data center, so there’s no water consumption there either.”

Thornock further committed to paying for municipal fire protection, road maintenance, and emergency service responses required by the facility, and said the company will be working with Target Hospitality to provide workforce housing to avoid affecting the local housing market.

Wyoming’s abundant gas resources and existing gathering systems, meanwhile, mean that production can increase with demand without dramatically spiking prices for that resource, while simultaneously supporting the state through severance taxes. 

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Why Data Centers Matter"}]

Swipe a credit card, and you’re interacting with a data center somewhere. Go to a gas station and use a preferred shopping card, and you’re interacting with a data center somewhere else.

“Our health care rules have been focused around the fact that all the records are in data centers,” Prometheus Hyperscale Head of Global Infrastructure James Faccone told the standing-room only crowd at Evanston’s Roundhouse on Tuesday. 

Fifth-generation Wyoming rancher Trenton Thornock pitched a huge 1.2 gigawatt data center on family land to a skeptical Evanston crowd on Tuesday. The project is facing a rising tide of opposition against data centers locally and across Wyoming.

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