Colorado Public Radio’s Sam Brasch reports that QTS wants to add 98 diesel backup generators to the 40 already installed at its massive data center campus in east Aurora. The facility, south of Denver International Airport, is described as Colorado’s largest data center and the state’s only hyperscale facility above 100 megawatts. Once complete, CPR reports, the campus will require at least 160 megawatts, roughly four times the nearby airport’s peak capacity.
That is the grown-up tradeoff in one sentence. Colorado wants the shiny tech economy, AI, cloud storage, jobs, digital infrastructure, and ribbon cuttings with people in hard hats pointing at things. Fine. But somebody has to power the beast. And when the backup plan is 138 diesel engines capable of producing around 345 megawatts, that is not a footnote. That is the lede wearing steel-toed boots.
CPR’s photos show the project already rising on Aurora’s eastern edge, with one data center complete, another nearly finished, and work underway for the third. Meanwhile, state air regulators are still reviewing QTS’s permit modification. Maybe that is legal. Maybe QTS is fully inside the lines. But “we’ll check after the reporter asks” is not exactly the confidence-building soundtrack citizens were hoping for.
The Bullet Point Brief
- QTS wants a much bigger diesel backup fleet. CPR reports the company is seeking approval for 98 additional diesel generators on top of 40 already installed. That would bring the total to 138 engines at a 160-megawatt hyperscale data center.
- The pollution concerns are not imaginary. CPR notes the generators can emit particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, which matter in a region already struggling with ozone. Lungs, famously, do not accept corporate mission statements as filtration.
- QTS deserves credit for some choices. The company plans selective catalytic reduction systems on the proposed generators, uses sound walls, attended a public meeting, and relies on closed-loop cooling that uses about 2,400 gallons of water per day. Compared with CoreSite’s reported evaporative cooling numbers of 115,000 gallons per day on average and 230,000 at peak, that is a real difference.
- But the big operational questions remain. QTS says the generators are for testing, maintenance, and emergencies, similar to hospital backup generators. Fine. Then answer the adult questions: Why 138? How often will they run? What are the enforceable limits? Could they ever be used for grid support like data center generators were back East under PJM?
- The public comment window matters. CPR reports the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division expects a 30-day public comment period after it analyzes the permit application, likely with notice in the next five to nine weeks. Citizens should watch for it and show up with specific questions, not interpretive dance.
My Bottom Line
This is not an anti-data-center tantrum. Data centers are real infrastructure. Hospitals, banks, phones, businesses, emergency systems, cloud storage, artificial intelligence, and half the modern economy run on servers. Pretending we can live in a digital world without the warehouses full of blinking machines is childish.
But corporate oatmeal is not accountability. “Environmental stewardship” and “appropriate reviews” are nice phrases, right up there with “your call is important to us.” If a company wants 138 diesel engines in an ozone nonattainment region, the public deserves plain answers. How often will they operate? Under what conditions? Who verifies compliance? What are the penalties if limits are exceeded? What happens when power demand spikes and the grid starts sweating through its shirt?
The political class owns part of this mess, too. They demand electrification, cheer data growth, invite tech investment, and then make reliable dispatchable power harder to build. That is how you end up with diesel generators as the emergency parachute for an energy policy that keeps sawing at the airplane wings.
Colorado can host industrial-scale digital infrastructure, but the costs have to be public. Emissions, water use, grid strain, backup plans, noise, permit limits, and enforcement should be understood before everyone starts congratulating themselves at the ribbon cutting. No panic sermon. No corporate fog machine. Just accountability with teeth.
Source: Colorado Public Radio
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