Project Jupiter, if built, would lock New Mexico into more oil and gas dependence for decades. Tell state regulators to say no to this air pollution permit.
Oracle, OpenAI, and their partners want to build a massive data center near Santa Teresa, in Doña Ana County. It’s a $165 billion project. At first, they planned to power it with gas turbines and diesel generators. After people pushed back, they switched to something called fuel cells and called it clean energy. It is not since the energy for the fuel cells still comes from fossil fuels.
The fuel cells for this project would still run on natural gas, mostly methane. Fuel cells use an electro-chemical process to turn methane into electricity at high temperature (~800°C) but without combustion. The methane fuel is converted to hydrogen inside the fuel cell and emits CO2 as the byproduct. Since methane, also known as natural gas, is the fuel, upstream methane leaks and impacts from fracking and produced water are as bad as a gas plant per unit of fuel. They even need a new gas pipeline that doesn’t exist yet, and that state regulators already turned down once. This project is anything but clean. In fact:
- This would be one of the largest fuel cell facilities ever built, anywhere;
- The project is expected to release about 10 million tons of pollution every year. That’s roughly as much as all of New Mexico’s biggest cities combined;
- The gas pipeline would cross rivers, streams, undisturbed desert habitat and run nearby residents and water sources.
New Mexico has worked hard to clean up its air and hold the oil and gas industry accountable. Approving this permit would undo a lot of that work, right when we should be investing in wind and solar, not new gas extraction that puts frontline communities and the climate at risk.
What you can do
The New Mexico Environment Department is expected to hold a hearing for this permit, but the New Mexico Supreme Court has temporarily halted the permit proceedings, leaving the date and next steps uncertain.
People have raised concerns about the fairness of this process, including hearing date changes, fake comments being submitted to NMED and restricting access to the administrative permit records.
- Sign the petition. Tell NMED to reject this permit until developers can meet sustainable and community drive guardrail protections.
- Share this page. People deserve to know what’s being built in their home state.
- Attend the hearing. Your voice matters. Make sure you are subscribed to our email list for updates on how you can participate at the NMED hearing.