A massive $66 billion data center project could be taking shape near Lost Cabin, turning a quiet corner of Fremont County into a flashpoint for the state’s tech boom.
Aethel Energy is nearing completion on a small 1-megawatt data center about 60 miles northeast of Riverton, but at a Fremont County Commission meeting Tuesday officials said the company could have bigger plans in mind.
The larger project would include several buildings, possibly phased in as separate campuses, and run on about 500 megawatts of natural gas power generated on site.
With no zoning regulations in Fremont County, commissioners have limited power in how the buildout might take shape.
If it happens, it would be the costliest data center project in Wyoming to date. A proposed 5,300-acre data center for the border of Goshen and Platte counties is estimated at $26 billion, and the planned Project Tembo on 716 acres south of Cheyenne is estimated at $17 billion.
‘Mind-Boggling’
Commissioner Clarence Thomas told Cowboy State Daily the county not only lacks say on the project, but commissioners don’t even know what’s happening with it.
Commissioners first learned of the project through a courtesy notice from the company, Thomas said, which said it might seek state permits for a project in the Lost Cabin area, about 30 miles northeast of Shoshoni.
“It’s mind-boggling,” Thomas said. “We can’t have any involvement because we don’t have anything in the sense of government responsibility or regulations to do anything.”
To zone or not to zone, Thomas said, is a question he’s seen play out over two decades as a commissioner. They tried to address it twice over that 20-year period, Thomas said, and both times got a resounding ‘no’ from the community.
“The constituents of Fremont County didn’t want anything to do with zoning,” he said. “We have a lot of ranchers and a lot of farmers who don’t benefit from zoning because things have never happened like this before. This is a new step into people learning what can occur if you don’t have zoning.”
Without the step of involvement or regulation from the county, Thomas said he fears data centers might start popping up like weeds.
“It’s been happening everywhere,” Thomas said. “Look at Cheyenne. One day they had no data centers, now they have a huge data center and nobody had any say in it.”
That also leaves the public with little chance to weigh in because county hearings and permit reviews are typically where residents get their say.
Donna Birkholz, executive director of the Powder River Basin Resource Council, told Cowboy State Daily the potential $66 billion project adds to the list of situations she has heard about from members across the state, where communities learn about large projects only after the plans are well underway.
“It’s time for the people of Wyoming to make their concerns heard,” Birkholz said. “This is just another example of a development where the process is proceeding without input from the community.”
‘Kind of Exciting’
Lost Cabin is a remote, unincorporated community in the high-plains desert, about an hour northeast of Riverton and a few miles from Lysite. The area is sparsely settled, with oil and gas pipelines running through it and a large natural gas plant nearby.
Its best-known landmark is the J.B. Okie Mansion, the 1901 sandstone home of Wyoming’s “sheep king.” Zane Fross has lived there since 2009, has spent years working to restore the historic home, and has served on the executive board of the Wyoming Historical Society.
While Fross is devoted to preserving a piece of Wyoming’s past, he told Cowboy State Daily he wouldn’t mind seeing a data center from his front yard.
“It seems kind of exciting,” Fross said. “My goodness, this has been such a good old field out here. This whole world just keeps on producing.”
Fross said he believes the project will bring money and economic development to the area, and those dollars will ultimately go back into local schools and roads.
“I’m just feeling strong like it’s a good thing and I’m optimistic about it,” Fross said of the potential new project. “I was on the school board for years and we were always wanting more money and very seldom did anyone try to turn money back. I think it’ll be good to help the community and keep jobs.”
He’s heard fear or skepticism about AI, but Fross said having a son who works in the tech industry helps him see the upsides of it.
“It’s kind of the future, you know,” Fross said. “I’m more like Joshua and Caleb, not like those other ten spies going onto the promised land who were scared.”
Trial Run
Fremont County Planning Director Steve Baumann told Cowboy State Daily the project is moving through the same process as any other industrial development in the county, with the state, not the county, handling the permits.
“It’s not like the county doesn’t know what’s going on,” Baumann said. “With the process that’s in place, the folks who are asking for the permit don’t have to tell us what their plan is.”
Plans for the larger site would go through the state, Baumann said, with agencies such as the Department of Environmental Quality, the Industrial Siting Council, and Wyoming Game and Fish weighing in on different pieces.
To get the ball rolling on those state permits, which Baumann said is a lengthy process, Aethel Energy asked the county for a cover letter confirming it has no zoning rules for the area.
“Because these things take so dang long for permitting, I think they presumed it was in their best interest to get out ahead of it,” Baumann said.
Baumann recently toured the company’s existing data center, a metal building on historic ranch land that he said should be up and running within the next month or two. When he visited, the spaces set aside for the servers and battery backup were still empty, with that equipment expected to arrive over the next several weeks.
That small data center, Baumann said, could serve as a trial run for the company to decide what more they want to build.
Baumann said the company has no firm plans yet, so it remains to be seen whether the larger project is ever built. If it is, Baumann said it would boost the tax revenue for Fremont County.
“That’s in everybody’s best interest,” Baumann said. “So the county is hopeful that these folks are successful.”
Emma Jane Jackson can be reached at emma@cowboystatedaily.com.
