Utah's Stratos Data Center Could Dump 23 Nuclear Bombs' Worth of Heat Daily, Experts Warn

A proposed “hyperscale” data center in Box Elder County, Utah, will create an enormous heat island that could devastate the area’s ecology, according to an expert’s analysis. Dubbed the Stratos Project and backed by the celebrity venture capitalist Kevin O’Leary, the sprawling facility will devour up to nine gigawatts of energy—more than double the electricity used by the entire state.

That energy demand comes with a hidden cost: waste heat. Robert Davies, a physics professor at Utah State University, calculated that the facility will produce an additional 7 to 8 gigawatts of waste heat, bringing its total “thermal load” to 16 gigawatts. Davies shared his findings with The Salt Lake Tribune.

The Stratos Project’s reliance on on-site gas power generators, which run continuously, allows it to operate off the local power grid—a common practice for large-scale data centers needing rapid access to massive electricity supplies. However, this approach concentrates all waste heat in the same area, rather than dispersing it across a broader region like traditional power plants. The affected area is Hansel Valley, a topography that already traps air.

Energy Equivalent to 23 Nuclear Bombs Per Day

Davies’ calculations reveal the staggering scale of the project’s environmental impact. He determined that the Stratos facility would dump energy equivalent to “about 23 atom bombs worth” into the local environment every single day.

“What happens if you deposit that much energy continuously into a topography like this?” Davies told The Salt Lake Tribune. “Right at the north end of the Great Salt Lake, a watershed that’s in collapse. A high desert environment? A valley?”

To put the energy footprint into perspective, Davies compared it to Walmart Supercenters. The Stratos facility will occupy land equal to roughly 2,000 Supercenters—but its energy use will match that of 40,000 Supercenters, or 2,000 Walmarts stacked 20 deep.

Potential Temperature Spikes and Ecological Collapse

Davies’ analysis predicts severe temperature increases: up to five degrees Fahrenheit during the day and a staggering 28 degrees at night. Ben Abbott, an ecology professor at Brigham Young University who reviewed Davies’ work, warned that this could transform Utah’s semi-arid climate into something resembling the Sahara Desert.

“That’s the difference between Utah’s semi-arid climate and the Sahara Desert,” Abbott told The Salt Lake Tribune. “This would absolutely change the landscape.”

The valley, Abbott predicts, may become another desiccated landscape, exacerbating the region’s dust problem as the shrinking Great Salt Lake exposes more lakebed. Davies’ preliminary analysis adds to growing research on data centers’ thermal impact, including studies examining their heat island effects.