.jpg){kind=logo}
The Alaska Department of Natural Resources has approved a 50-year land lease to STAK Energy Corporation for a gas-fired data center campus on the North Slope. DNR Commissioner John Crowther signed the final finding and decision on Nov. 10. The lease covers 715.4 acres about 26 miles south of Deadhorse and one mile west of the Dalton Highway.
Featured: Aerial view of elevated industrial pads and infrastructure across the North Slope tundra near Deadhorse.
The state is the landlord and STAK Energy holds the lease. The Anchorage company develops and would operate the STAK Energy Campus. The project is behind the meter, generating its own electricity from North Slope natural gas rather than drawing from Alaska's Railbelt grid. The lease allows up to three gigawatts of on-site generation for modular high-performance computing buildings. No tenant or end user has been named.
DNR puts initial capital spending at about $500 million, with up to 1,500 construction workers at peak and 50 to 150 permanent jobs. The campus would use dry-air cooling and sit on a gravel pad raised above the tundra. STAK says the design cuts operational water use by 90 percent or more. State lease documents put the gravel requirement at about 7 million cubic yards.
The approval followed a long review. DNR issued a preliminary decision in May and later extended the comment deadline from June 15 to July 17. The department received 1,205 comments, the Northern Alaska Environmental Center reports. DNR then modified the preliminary decision, the entry authorization and the lease, the group says.
DNR wrote in its response to commenters that the proposal "presents circumstances that are, in important respects, without direct precedent in the State's historical management of its lands and resources." The department said Alaska has no large-scale commercial computing data centers today, the Alaska Beacon reported.
Gas supply is still being arranged. The environmental center says STAK has signed a 15-year agreement with ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc. to buy natural gas for the campus. That agreement does not authorize the pipeline that would carry the gas, and STAK still needs a DNR right-of-way for the line. At full buildout, STAK estimates the campus could consume 350 to 500 million standard cubic feet of gas a day.
Earlier reporting by the Anchorage Press found that STAK had not locked in a firm gas supply. Turbine backlogs for gas generation equipment ran as long as seven years, that report said. The company previously said it was raising money from Anchorage firm McKinley Alaska Private Investment. STAK has not disclosed who would finance the project.
Baxtel tracks three data center facilities in Alaska, operated by two providers, and lists STAK Energy's Umiat site as the largest in the state.
Eligible commenters have until Nov. 30 to request reconsideration from the DNR commissioner, with a $200 filing fee. The project still needs federal wetlands authorization from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a state air quality permit for the power plant.
Related on Baxtel
