Cattle graze on land proposed to be used for the Stratos Project data center in the Hansel Valley area of Box Elder County on Tuesday, May 12, 2026. This swath of land is the more eastern of the two largest sections of land proposed to be used for the data center. Isaac Hale, Deseret News
Opinion: Power, water and preemption — the reality of the Stratos data center
May 29, 2026 | Deseret News, Salt Lake City, UT
By Karen Crompton
Karen Crompton is a member of the Utah Citizens' Counsel, an organization dedicated to improving public policy. She is the former Salt Lake County Director of Human Services.
Box Elder County is currently standing on the precipice of a decision that could reshape Northern Utah’s landscape forever. The proposed Stratos Project — a massive, 40,000-acre data center and energy campus — is larger than Bryce Canyon National Park. But its physical footprint pales in comparison to its staggering resource demands.
At full operation, the facility will require 9 gigawatts (GW) of electricity. To put that in perspective, the entire state of Utah operates on a continuous demand of about 4 GW. Stratos alone will demand more than double the entire state’s power grid capacity, a deficit the developers plan to plug by burning natural gas directly on-site.