Editor’s Note: This is Part 1 of a four-part PVC.news series examining the proposed NCDC data center planned near the southern entrance to Pahrump. Over the coming weeks, this series will explore the questions residents have raised about water, safety, infrastructure, jobs, taxes and what the project could mean for the community.
When longtime Pahrump resident Russ Meads first heard a large-scale data center was being proposed for the southern end of the valley, he wasn’t intrigued by the opportunity. He was opposed to it.
Like many residents, his first concern was water.
Living in one of the driest regions in the country, Meads questioned whether a project of that size belonged in a community that has long wrestled with conversations about groundwater resources and future growth.
“I was against it because of the understanding of water use and our limited resources here, especially in the Pahrump Basin,” Meads said.
At the time, his understanding of data centers was much like that of many others in the community today. Large facilities housing thousands of computer servers were commonly associated with enormous amounts of water used to keep equipment cool.
Rather than becoming involved with the proposal, Meads said he initially told those behind the project he wasn’t interested in helping and believed it should be built somewhere else.
That changed—but not overnight.
Over the next year and a half, Meads said he immersed himself in learning everything he could about modern data centers. Rather than simply accepting information provided by the developers, he said he spoke with engineers, researched cooling technologies and worked to independently understand whether a facility of this scale could realistically operate in the Mojave Desert without placing significant demands on the valley’s water supply.
The question that drove much of his research was straightforward.
Could a large data center truly operate in the desert without continuously consuming water?
According to Meads, the answer was yes.
He said the key wasn’t building a conventional data center, but designing one around a different type of cooling system.
“When I realized that it’s possible to develop one of these at zero water use—not low, but none (other than the initial fill)—I was shocked,” he said.
That discovery, Meads said, completely changed the way he viewed the proposal.
Understanding what he means requires looking at how data centers are typically cooled.
Servers generate enormous amounts of heat while operating around the clock. That heat has to be removed continuously to keep the equipment functioning properly.
Many data centers accomplish this through evaporative cooling systems. Those systems use water as part of the cooling process, allowing it to evaporate and carry heat away from the equipment. Because water is continually lost through evaporation, it must constantly be replaced, resulting in ongoing water consumption.
The proposed Pahrump project, however, is being designed around a different approach.
According to Meads, the facility would use an air-cooled, closed-loop chiller system.
Instead of continually consuming water, the cooling liquid would circulate through sealed piping, absorbing heat from inside the buildings before returning to equipment where fans remove that heat. The cooled liquid would then be sent back through the system to repeat the process.
“It literally goes through the system, comes back out, it’s cooled by fans and then just put back in the system,” Meads explained. “The system doesn’t evaporate water.”
Because the water remains inside the closed system, he said it is not continually discharged or replaced during normal operation.
Meads acknowledged that air-cooled systems are more expensive than traditional evaporative cooling, both to build and operate. He said that higher cost is one reason many facilities continue to use evaporative systems in areas where water is more readily available.
For him, however, the cooling system became a non-negotiable issue.
“I approached these guys and said, if you were willing to go with option A, which is zero water use, I would be willing to helping you continue your project,” Meads said. “They committed to that.”
While the cooling equipment itself would not consume water through evaporation, Meads emphasized that the campus would still require ordinary potable water for employees. Restrooms, sinks, janitorial facilities and other everyday building needs would still be supplied with water, just as they would be in any office or industrial facility.
The preliminary design also includes limited landscaping around portions of the site, primarily as screening rather than decorative green space.
When those uses are combined, Meads said the current estimate places the campus’s total annual water demand at approximately 70 acre-feet.
To him, however, the more important comparison isn’t between the proposed data center and untouched desert.
It’s between the proposed data center and what the property is already approved to become.
The approximately 900-acre site already has an approved development agreement allowing for 5,738 homes, along with commercial property, parks and open space.
Meads believes that distinction is often overlooked during public discussions.
“The choice isn’t between a data center and open desert,” he said during the interview. Instead, he views the decision as one between the proposed industrial campus and a large residential community that already has development rights.
Using figures he discussed during the interview, Meads estimated that developing the property under its existing residential entitlement could require roughly 2,900 acre-feet of water annually. He estimated that a fully built residential and commercial community could ultimately require even more.
Those comparisons became one of the turning points in his research.
Rather than viewing the proposal as introducing development to previously untouched land, Meads came to see it as an alternative use for property that has long been planned for significant growth.
His support, he said, wasn’t based on accepting every claim at face value. Instead, it came after months of asking questions, visiting facilities, talking with engineers and comparing what he learned with the information already available about the property’s existing development rights.
That process ultimately led him to a conclusion he admits surprised even him.
He now believes the proposed data center represents a lower-water alternative to the residential development already approved for the property.
The developers behind the proposal are identified as NCDC Developers, a group Meads described as bringing together individuals with varying levels of experience in the data center industry. According to Meads, the company hired an engineering firm with extensive experience designing data centers in the United States and internationally to help develop the Pahrump project around the air-cooled concept.
Today, Meads serves as a consultant assisting the developers through the entitlement process, but he emphasized during the interview that he has no ownership interest in the project and no guaranteed construction contract.
His role, he said, grew out of the same questions many residents continue asking today.
For Meads, the issue that once caused him to oppose the project ultimately became the reason he began supporting it.
The remaining questions, however, extend well beyond water.
Residents have also raised concerns about noise, building design, security, traffic, chemicals, electricity, tax incentives, employment and the long-term impact the project could have on the community.
Those topics will be explored in the remaining installments of this series.
Coming Next: Part 2 examines what the proposed data center would actually look and sound like, addressing questions about noise, cooling equipment, building design, security, chemicals and several misconceptions that have circulated within the community.
For more details on the project, visit https://mansetechcampus.com/.
