Recent disclosures by the New Mexico Environment Department raise questions about developers’ emissions estimates for a proposed natural gas fuel cell plant to power Project Jupiter.
The agency’s emails to Project Jupiter attorneys noted new modeling requested by staff showed higher concentrations of pollutants than emissions modeling developers had submitted earlier this year in connection with the controversial hyperscale data center in Southern New Mexico. The disclosures come as a contentious Environment Department proceeding for the fuel cell plant’s air quality permit moves forward.
Also in question is a November deadline for the agency’s decision on the permit, which developers have said is critical for the project’s timeline.
Meanwhile, construction on the data center has continued rapidly, even as the buildings lack power.
Executives of Oracle and STACK Infrastructure — Project Jupiter’s main developers, along with Bloom Energy, which was brought on to build the fuel cell plant — traveled to Santa Teresa on Tuesday to provide an update to Doña Ana County commissioners, news media and community members.
Company officials did not respond to The New Mexican‘s questions Wednesday about the emissions modeling noted in the emails. A spokesperson for Oracle said earlier this week the developers were “working very closely with the regulatory authorities in terms of meeting the air modeling results, ensuring that we’re doing everything per the rules and regulations.”
‘Concentrations doubled’
The recent emails indicate state Environment Department staff had sought additional information from developers on “the accuracy of emissions testing, exhaust flow and composition and CO2 calculation methodology,” and that developers provided the “exact design” of the fuel cell’s stacks as well as “resulting exhaust.”
The new information, however, led to different results than materials included in the original permit application, according to the emails.
An attorney for the Environment Department’s Air Quality Bureau sent an email to Project Jupiter attorney Jennifer Bradfute on Oct. 2, requesting an in-person meeting to discuss the discrepancies.
“In the most recent modeling compared to the original modeling, there is an approximately 2% increase in emissions but, more significantly, the modeled pollutant concentrations doubled,” the Environment Department attorney wrote, noting the pollutant calculations still appeared to fall below certain national standards.
An air quality permit application developers submitted earlier this year included projected annual emissions of 10 million tons of greenhouse gases, measured in carbon dioxide equivalent. That marked a reduction from a previous plan that included natural gas turbines.
The fuel cell plant is projected to produce about 2.45 gigawatts — more than the power used in the state’s most populous cities combined.
The Environment Department attorney wrote the new modeling “calls into question whether the original use of assumptions is a defensible and conservative approach,” referring to underlying conditions built into the modeling. The email noted the developer’s statement that “a more exact source characterization would have had no noticeable effect on the results as the stacks are spaced closely together and have the same dispersion characteristics.”
Environment Department staff met with developers and their consultant a few days later, according to an Oct. 9 email.
“The Air Quality Bureau understood from the meeting that [Yucca Growth Infrastructure, the developer of the data center’s power system] may not use its most current air dispersion modeling design … and will submit updated air dispersion modeling reflecting the permit application,” the department’s attorney wrote.
The administrative record
Some environmental groups taking part in the regulatory proceeding for the permit application have complained developers’ plans for the power plant have continued to evolve, even while they barrel toward a November deadline for a decision on the permit.
Colin Cox, an attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, called it a “moving target.”
“It definitely raises a ton of questions,” Cox said of the emails from the Environment Department. “I’m glad that the Environment Department is looking into this — we need to have a meaningful chance to look into this, too.”
Cox’s organization and others have pushed for a discovery process, like the evidence-sharing practices in court proceedings, in which the data center’s developers would provide more answers on the project.
“There’s a lot of information we don’t have, and we need to take our time to do this right,” Cox said.
The Environment Department attorney noted in the second email Project Jupiter developers “may be amenable to an extension of the November 23 decision deadline.” However, he added, the Air Quality Bureau “cannot properly evaluate extending the decision deadline” without answers from developers on a list of questions related to the configuration of the fuel cell setup and emissions, and the developers’ calculations.
The emails were released as part of the state’s disclosure of the administrative record of the proceeding, which was ordered by a new hearing officer earlier this month.
The newly appointed hearing officer — retired federal judge James O. Browning — ordered the Environment Department to release the administrative record Oct. 2. The record includes thousands of pages, including public comments, technical papers and email correspondence.
Santa Fe-based environmental advocacy group New Energy Economy moved Wednesday for Project Jupiter’s air quality permit application to be dismissed without prejudice, meaning developers would be able to reapply for the permit. The group argued the permit application is “administratively incomplete.”
Executive Director Mariel Nanasi said the details revealed in the email disclosures demonstrate “exactly why public access to the administrative record matters.”
“Once we could examine the evidence, we discovered something extraordinary: NMED’s own records show that when more accurate information about the power source was modeled, predicted pollutant concentrations doubled,” she said in a statement. “This is not our characterization; this is what the permitting agency itself documented.”
Critic’s ‘passion for justice’
The new emissions modeling may have been spurred by questions raised by Lindsay Leveen, a chemical engineer based in Northern California.
Leveen began dedicating his attention to what he calls Bloom Energy’s “greenwashing” more than a decade ago due to his “passion for justice,” he said in an interview Wednesday.
Leveen has submitted reams of comments and questions concerning Project Jupiter’s air quality permit, questioning Bloom’s emissions calculations and other aspects of the proposed fuel cell plant. In recent months, state Environment Department staff have pressed Bloom and its consultants for explanations and clarification based on specific concerns raised by Leveen, emails from the record show.
The outspoken fuel-cell critic said after he raised concerns to the Environment Department that the emissions volumes in the project’s dispersion model were “cockamamie,” the company produced new modeling of pollutants in the administrative record.
“We’re going to tell the hearing officer that we need months to check their dispersion model — I mean, I can’t check it in an afternoon,” Leveen said. “So, who knows when the actual hearing will happen?”
A public hearing on the proposed permit was initially scheduled in September or October. The hearing had not been rescheduled as of Wednesday, but a scheduling conference was set Thursday morning.
Nicholas Gilmore covers public safety and utilities at The New Mexican. Julia Gentin is a reporter for The Las Cruces New Mexican, The Santa Fe New Mexican and Searchlight New Mexico through a partnership with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. She covers the Southern New Mexico region. Learn more about Report for America at reportforamerica.org.
