Hot on the heels of the announcement of a 1 gigawatt gas-powered data centre at Murranji Station in the Barkly in central Northern Territory, a second gigawatt scale data centre has been proposed for Weddell, outside Garramilla/Darwin, that would overwhelm the NTs digital and energy infrastructure.
While the company behind Project Ares, Energy North, boasts some relevant construct pedigree, the company behind the Weddell proposal, Beetaloo Digital (formerly Beetaloo Energy, formerly Empire Energy), looks more like three frackers in a trenchcoat.
The NT Country Liberal Party government is backing Beetaloo Digital’s project, announcing on July 22 a “not-to-deal” agreement for the 185 hectares of land at Weddell, giving it exclusive access to the site.
The land was formerly slated to be the next satellite city for Garramilla’s expansion, but is now flanked by the rural Berry Springs on one side and the heavy industry area at Middle Arm on Darwin Harbour.
When asked to share evidence considered before committing the land to Beetaloo Digital, CLP chief minister Lia Finocchiaro instead focused on the NTs apparent abundance of fossil fuels.
Finocchiaro claimed “investors are literally banging down the door … because they understand there is going to be a safe, reliable, affordable pipeline of energy [from the Beetaloo sub-basin] in the Northern Territory for way longer than any of us are going to be alive.”
Investors were certainly interested, with 18 million shares traded on the day of the announcement.
However, the plans included no timeline, partners or customers. It amounted to a glossy brochure, a big price tag and a generous land agreement.
The agreement itself has not even been published, meaning the centrepiece of the deal is an agreement that investors have not seen.
Ultimately, the proposal is a pilot fracking project working towards its first gas, a fracking company in a tech company costume. Everything else is subject to future studies, partnerships and approvals.
After a week, stocks were down 7%, a measure of the real value of CLP endorsement.
In contrast, Energy North at Murranji is privately held, was granted Major Project status by federal Labor and is now moving quickly towards the approvals process.
While neither of these two gigawatt-scale projects have customers lined-up, that hasn’t stopped them claiming land and water.
Garramilla’s data-centre industry — NEXTDC’s D1 and its planned D2 proposal — are modest, grid-connected and with named customers. Their total power demand is just a dozen megawatts. They pay for their water, and use just a fraction of a percent of Darwin’s supply.
Meanwhile, the Murranji borefield wants 4 billion litres a year from an underground aquifer at no cost.
In its proposal for Weddell, Beetaloo Digital wisely avoided the word “water” altogether. Not even the Adelaide River Off-stream Water Storage Project, which makes extravagant claims about doubling water supply and “enabling economic opportunities” could deliver enough water for such a project.
As for energy, while the ministerial press release detailed 2 gigawatt demand, Beetaloo Digital’s own documents commit to no capacity. Instead it calculates a 200-terajoule-per-day of energy use per gigawatt, energy produced entirely by gas.
This bears the truth of the proposal, Beetaloo Digital is a gas company masquerading as a tech company to boost gas production in the NT.