Utah approved a data center so massive it's going to be more than twice the size of Manhattan It’s called The Stratus Project, it’s a AI data center campus in Box Elder County - The full project could cover over 40,000 acres, an area bigger than Manhattan - Total size will be around 62 square miles - The power demand is 3 gigawatts of electricity, roughly the output of multiple nuclear reactors - Environmental groups warn it could raise Utah's planet-heating pollution by nearly 50% - Estimates suggest the project's power systems could consume up to 16.6 billion gallons of water per year. (25,000 Olympic swimming pools) First let’s talk about power, it will actually use up to 9 GW of power. This is roughly double Utah’s current peak electricity demand. Only the first phase will use 3 GW Next let’s talk about water, Developers are now saying that they will use closed-loo dry (air-based) cooling systems to minimize consumption. But it’ll still use a lot of water This is bad news for water conservation. Utah is in drought conditions, the Great Salt Lake is shrinking. It’s visible and you can see it right now So why do we need this really, according to what I can find it’s going to be tied with defense contracts The data center will be tied to US defense priorities. It overlaps with Department of Defense areas and is advanced through Utah’s Military Installation Development Authority. Officials cite needs for energy resilience, secure computing power, and data storage for defense operations So this is a private data center but it’s not really a private data center…. Because it’ll be working with the government. One layer removed…

Utah has a new law about VPNs and age checks for adult websites that starts next week. The law called Senate Bill 73 requires websites with adult content to check the age of people in Utah before they can see it using simple checks like ID cards Using a VPN or any tool to hide your location does not help and if you are really in Utah the website must still check your age while websites cannot tell people how to use VPNs or other tricks to get around the rules. Websites that break the rules can face lawsuits and fines, Utah is the first state to make rules like this about VPNs. The law does not ban VPN services and it does not affect news sites or internet providers but privacy groups say this could mean more ID checks for everyone and make VPNs less useful for normal privacy needs.

BREAKING: Utah Supreme Court Justice Diana Hagen has RESIGNED amid an investigation for having a romantic relationship with the lawyer who argued the Democrats’ Utah redistricting case, which she ruled in FAVOR of