New Mexico land commissioner shoots down Canadian data center company’s pitch at Spaceport America

New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard on Thursday shot down a Canadian company’s pitch to build a solar-powered data center at Spaceport America.

Green Data CEO Jason Bak has been in talks with Spaceport officials for years about building a data center on the property, which is on leased state trust land. Bak has engaged in those talks on behalf of another one of his companies, Aetherion.

Earlier this year, Bak unsuccessfully pursued a partnership with New Mexico Tech in Socorro to build a solar-powered data center on 10,000 acres of land. The university in June backed out of the deal, in large part because it lacked enough contiguous land to make it work.

Bak, who has a background in renewable energy infrastructure, has pitched rural New Mexico communities on an eco-friendly vision. He often speaks of employing technology known as “atmospheric water generation” to harvest moisture from the air and turn it into usable water for cooling the data center. At public meetings, he has previously said that he believes such a model could generate a surplus of water for the excessively parched region.

However, neither Bak nor his company has successfully built a data center.

A Canadian developer’s New Mexico data center pitch may be dying. It wouldn’t be the first time

A number of New Mexico county commissions — including the one in Sierra County, where Spaceport is located — have approved data center moratoria this year. In her Thursday letter, Garcia Richard said that applies to the land on which Spaceport sits, too.

“Simply put, I will not be approving any data centers, including the proposed Aetherion sublease at Spaceport America,” she wrote. “It is NMSLO’s position that the County’s moratorium is applicable to proposed activities at Spaceport America.”

Bak did not respond to a request for comment.

Scott McLaughlin, Spaceport’s executive director, told Source NM that he will abide by Garcia Richard’s letter, but left the door open to collaborating with Bak in the future once any applicable moratoria expire.

“We consider the State Land Office and the county to be partners and we want to work together to do what’s best for the county and the state and, of course, for our customers to the extent that we can,” he said, adding that future discussions regarding a potential data center “will be up to Aetherion and Jason Bak.”

A grassroots group of local residents, who have dubbed themselves Project Consequences, on Thursday lauded Garcia Richard’s decision.

“This letter closes the loophole that some apparently hoped existed at Spaceport America,” Monticello resident Sulome Anderson said in a statement. “A developer cannot evade the community simply by putting its project on state land. The State Land Office has now made clear that the county’s moratorium matters, the contractual requirements matter and — most importantly — the will of the impacted community matters.”