An AI server farm tsunami threatens to overwhelm the West’s power grid and water supplies.
Jonathan Thompson
Jonathan Thompson is a contributing editor at High Country News. He is the author of Sagebrush Empire: How a Remote Utah County Became the Battlefront of American Public Lands. Follow him @LandDesk
Posted inIssues
Western economies falter under the Trump administration
Tariffs, layoffs and federal funding clawbacks stress budgets.
Posted inArticles
The nation’s energy dominance falters
Trump is killing clean energy, and it’s not even helping fossil fuels.
Posted inArticles
The dismantling of the Forest Service
The Trump administration’s plans would remake the agency and public lands. The deadline to comment is Sept. 30.
Posted inArticles
Trump looks to suffocate public lands
The administration and Congress divert funds away from conservation.
Posted inAugust 2025: Fire Culture
The West’s data centers suck (water and power)
From simple searches to chatGPT, the big digital buildup threatens the grid and water supplies.
Posted inArticles
MAGA and the developers are coming for your public lands
Sen. Mike Lee slips federal land privatization provision into Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.”
Posted inJune 2025: The Promised Land
Wolves return to the West
After being driven to near-extinction, these animals, and the politics around them, are back.
Posted inArticles
A proposed Utah uranium mine gets the Trump treatment
Feds approve contested facility in just 11 days.
Posted inMay 2025: The Art of the Cruise
See 60 days of DOGE chaos
Charting the mass culling of the federal workforce.
Posted inArticles
Can Trump bring back ‘clean, beautiful coal’?
The fossil fuel-fetish once again trumps economics and common-sense.
Posted inApril 2025: A Monumental Reckoning
Is a nuclear renaissance coming?
Data center power demand is sparking interest in new reactors.
Posted inArticles
Trump’s unprecedented attack on America
We need an army of Raúl Grijalvas to stem the flood of ‘bullshit’ emanating out of the White House.
Posted inMarch 2025: The Berry Pickers
The rise of the recreation economy
Public-lands tourism outpaces mining and drilling in much of the West.
Posted inArticles
Trump and Musk take aim at the rural West
Spending cuts hurt communities, economies and public lands.
Posted inFebruary 2025: Immigrant Stories
The climate fight endures
Despite a hostile administration, local governments in the West recognize the need to
continue the energy transition, and they have plans.
Posted inArticles
AI on public lands and Biden’s environmental legacy
The 46th president finished his term in customary contradictory style.
Posted inArticles
Jimmy Carter’s mixed environmental record
The former president emphasized conservation, protection — and coal mining.
Posted inArticles
Our imperiled public lands
President-elect Trump, a Republican-dominated Congress and Utah launch an all-out assault on environmental protection.
Posted inDecember 2024: Land as Reparations
2024 was a year of wacky Western weather
When assessing the region, not much was normal but climate change.