Here's some lovely artwork from the no desert data center (www.instagram.com/no_desert_da...) coalition that captures our feelings ⛈️

It would be great if a national news outlet picked up this story - its a type case for something that is increasingly an issue in the West. /fin

The good news is that Tucsonians are organized ✊ and are asking tough questions. azluminaria.org/2025/07/21/t...

AI data centers are just the latest put your junk in the desert thing. But we as desert dwellers don't need to stand for it. Why would we repeat the past's mistakes? All for an AI response for a search (that sometimes you didn't ask for and don't really need!).

There is a long history in the American West of putting our country's junk in the desert. c.f. a large portion of the State of Nevada (incl. the nuclear test range) and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, where chemical and biological weapons were tested en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dugway_...

It seems to me that data centers in the desert is the new "growing alfalfa in the desert." It makes more sense to put these in places with more water...but land is cheap in the desert and local cities might be more amenable to the deal...

Economically the boost of the data center would be the construction jobs, and there is no denying that, hence for trade unions this is a really good thing. But in the long-term, there are almost no people working at places like this. www.kold.com/2025/07/24/e...

The city claims the River won't be affected, but it's hard to imagine how, since water diverted to the data center means less outflow on the river at one of the flow stations no matter where it occurs. Prof. Michael Bogan at @uarizona.bsky.social crunched the math drive.google.com/file/d/1sSAp...

Reclaimed water is used to restore the Santa Cruz River, which was in the early 20th century an actual flowing river but due to ground water pumping no longer flows on its own. But thanks to reclaimed water we now have these beautiful riparian areas coming back www.azcentral.com/story/news/l...

The water would rely on extending Tucson's reclaimed water system to the build to supply an estimated 0.8 million gallons per day (data centers in Phoenix use more than this). The problem is, reclaimed water demand is already very high in the city, and...

As far as power goes, the project is estimated to require 400-600 MW at full build. It's not clear yet how TEP our power supplier will meet that. Current peak energy demand is 2400 MW so this is non-trivial. It could involve keeping coal-fired plants up and running past their expiration date.

"Project Blue" is some (read: greenwashing) name for a data center that would be roughly the size of downtown Tucson, eat power and water, and provide only 180 jobs. For perspective, my department alone at the @uarizona.bsky.social employs about 130 people within 3-4 floors of a single building.

This summer Tucsonians started to hear about something called "Project Blue", a proposal to build data centers on our outskirts. The city officials signed a NDA to not disclose the company❗but thanks to @azluminaria.org the company was outed this week as Amazon 🤡 azluminaria.org/2025/07/21/a...

Several Fellows I talked to have decided to leave the US and seek science positions in Europe, citing the lack of positions here and negative attitude towards science 😞 Brain drain is a real thing that will have lasting impacts on US scientific strength.

Also, while temporary, the furlough caused a lot of stress for the Fellows, who scrambled to file for unemployment or get temporary positions since no one knew when it would end.

So bummed you are leaving - but it's probably a good choice