BISBEE WIRE/Special- info you need about the data center,county application, questions/ What AI is? Election: Regime coming to the US before Iran
Hello, I began this for my own education. Clearly got out of hand as one thing led to another. Hopefully you will find this as illuminating as I have. Artificial Intelligence (AI) use is quickly growing in most every aspect of our lives. There clearly are problems with its use, but there are also huge benefits to be gained. We, as a society, are just beginning to understand and grapple with the ramifications of this relatively new technology. The most pressing problem, illustrated in the elections, is an awakening that very few people are controlling the development, use and sale. And the trump administration's SEC will let people give them money for their stock (going public) when there clearly have been dangerous documented problems with 'AI escaping'. That should be stopped. It is my belief that these huge mega companies are the largest thieves in history. They have stolen, and continue to steal, from me, you, every citizen that lives in the US and most countries. They then repackage our information and sell it. They have stolen information indiscriminately from companies, books, scientists, health records, government records, military plans, and wherever there is an electronic trace. There is no source they will not ripoff. The remedy is that they should be made to pay billions in reparations, with the money used to aid poor and working people. And they should no longer be private companies. At the very least the government should own a 51% share of each of these companies. I would prefer outright ownership by the people of the US. Maybe the election will help bring some oversight and sanity to the overt corruption of corporations ignoring or purchasing the rules under which they are supposed to be regulated. fred ...............ELECTION COMMENTS................ There are very few events that publicly 'take the pulse' of a majority of citizens throughout our country. Elections do that. Consequently it is clear that this election was an emphatic rejection of much of trumpism, a repudiation of him personally and what his bootlikkers have done and want to do; the war, the policies, the cruelty, the personal crude epithets, the corruption, the absent republican senate and house, the ICE murders and actions, the glorification of wealth, and much more. But if I hear blue wave or blue tsunami one more time I'm gonna puke. This was, in fact, serious red bloodshed. It was done by a majority of people across the country angry, dissatisfied and hurting economically. Regime Change is Coming to the US before Iran, is what my friend Mike Thornton says and I agree. Dems ran on many familiar issues; corruption, cost of goods, lack of healthcare, anti-trump. But it wasn't a 'program' in the sense of a group of thought-out policies underpinning legislative actions. Hopefully some coherency will emerge. With rare exceptions, politicians do not lead. They put their finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing and bend that way. If a big donor is in that direction, all the better. The task is to make sure the wind is strong enough to bend them in best way. That is why it is imperative to let them know what is your opinion in whatever forum you can-what should be done and when. In Arizona, dems will control both the house and senate in addition to having each of the major administrative posts. It is the first time since 1966. It could be very positive. We'll see. In DC, there may be a battle for the senate leadership with newly elected and established senators wanting to see a change. If they do a quick vote it may be Chuck Schumer, if there is a few weeks delay with some calling for a vigorous discussion, we may be looking at Cris Van Holland. We'll see. On a side note...there are jobs, jobs, jobs in Phoenix. With dems in power-they set the operational budgets, chamber rules, and partisan hiring structures-If you or anyone you know is interested in serving in government, now is a good time to check it out. New politicos need legislative staffing, administrative jobs within agencies. I ..............COCHISE COUNTY................
THE PROPOSED DATA CENTER NEAR THE WILCOX PLAYA Like many I'm trying to understand what the proposed data center in Cochise County actually will do. So I've done some digging and some self-education. I've included information from the application to county , various newsletters and legacy press articles, and, ironically, Claude the Anthropic AI assistant. Also Ali Morse, a tenacious Portal resident that tracks Cochise County Supervisor decisions, has produced research, background info, and history that is valuable for understanding this application. Resources: Application: Go here for the actual special use application to the county turned in on Oct 30. There also is a second application HERE with modifications to the first one and turned in on November 2, after the scheduling deadline. It has 17 pages that have been revised. Apparently this is allowable according to the Ms. McLachlan of the county development services. This is a citizen website created by Patsy Nyberg, with a wealth of info https://www.stopcochisedatacenter.com/ This is the testimony of two career industrial hygienists in Michigan, https://youtu.be/uioLCgXECaM?t=4908 A clear explanation of a data center/AI was given at a Marana meeting by Colin Mellar, go here Data center: Is the term for any facility housing computing, storage, and networking equipment, along with the power, cooling, and security systems that keep it running. (see below for the difference in 'server farms' and 'data center'.) Who: After some major obfuscation, a whistle blower within Sulphur Springs Electric Coop revealed that the CEO, in an address to company workers, said that SpaceX was the corporation behind the application to the county. Immigrant Elon Musk controls about 80 % of the total voting power of SpaceX. The application and press releases came from Tombstone Resources LLC, a company formed in July of this year, with the address of a global law firm Eversheds Sutherland in Atlanta GA. SpaceX was not mentioned in any of the releases by the company until it was announced at the public meeting that it was SpaceX wanting the application. This is typical of large technology companies to obfuscate until they are found out. Proposed Size: 747 acres. The proposed development includes up to nine computing buildings, 40' tall, constructed in four phases. It also includes battery energy storage, electrical, cooling, and supporting infrastructure. According to the application it would use minimal water because it would be a 'closed loop' cooling system. Location: 748 acres adjacent to the Apache Generating Station, about 13 miles west of Wilcox, along Hwy 191, on the edge of the Wilcox Playa near the town of Cochise AZ. Wilcox Playa is a 40 sq mile dry lake bed that, in winter, is a roosting area for thousands of Sandhill Cranes. It is about 40 miles from Whitewater Draw another roosting area for the Cranes. Land Acquisition: AEPCO will sell 400 acres to-ummm I'm not sure because it hasn't become public but probably SpaceX I would guess-and 348 acres will be sold by Southline Transmission to SpaceX.(Southline Transmission is owned by Grid United via its wholly-owned subsidiary GU Southline LLC with founding investor Hunt Transmission Services, a subsidiary of privately owned Hunt Power/Hunt Energy. Southline is co-developing the Southline Transmission Project that includes a new transmission line between the Afton substation west of Las Cruces, New Mexico, and the Apache substation in Willcox, Arizona.) Apache Generating Station: The plant adjacent to the proposed data center will produce the electricity to power the center. Currently it produces about 1.3 gigawatts with a mix of natural gas, 90%, and coal, 10%, in their two operating units(with 5 standby units). They also have solar operations on 1300 acres near Apache. It is unknown whether they are selling any land that solar now occupies. They are ranked #19 out of 180 power plants in Arizona. The station was due to phase out coal use to attain 60% use of renewables by 2031, however the trump administration loosened the regs on coal and this summer the Dept of Energy awarded $21 million for upgrades to their coal fired steam generators. Another $32.5 million from an unidentified source non-governmental source, will be used for the upgrade. (Gigawatt definition: The application states that the first of four phases would need 1.5 Gigawatts, and an estimated electrical demand of 6 gigawatts at full build-out. Watts are the standard unit of power, and a gigawatt gigawatt (GW) is a much larger unit, equivalent to one billion watts. Power measures the rate at which energy is generated, used, or transferred. 1.5 Gigawatts could, depending on circumstances, provide electricity to about 1,300,000 homes for one year. (using an average of 10,000 kilowat hours per home). At complete build out, it is proposed to to need 6 Gigawatts is twice the size of all existing Maricopa data centers, and that output would power 3,000,000-5,000,000 homes.) Ownership of Apache Generating Station: AEPCO is usually stated as the owner however, as the chart shows, the parent cooperative is Arizona G&T Cooperatives. In practice it is AEPCO that sells wholesale power to member coops, the largest being Sulphur Springs Valley Coop based in Benson. They then sell retail electricity to residential and commercial consumers.(a cooperative is member-owned,not for profit organization) Did anyone at the county know? Welllll difficult to say for sure, but it seems they would have had some indication this year. The supes went through a process of establishing regulations for data centers. In early 2026 they directed the staff with the help of the CC Development Services to draft requirements and technical criteria. The draft then went to Planning and Zoning Commission in March for approval. P&Z approved and it then went to the supes who passed the regulations on April 7, 2026; Ordinance 26-09 (Section 2.51.040 of the Cochise County Zoning Regulations. There have been various claims, particularly by supervisor Antenori that he did not know in advance. The Public meeting: An informational meeting was held last week in Cochise. At the meeting SpaceX formerly revealed that they were behind the application for the data center. About 300 people attended the raucous meeting where a presentation describing the project was given before SpaceX employees fanned out to talk with smaller break out groups. Many were opposed and had signed a petition with 1400 names. Some were supportive. Most wanted more information. The Decision Meeting: A meeting of Cochise County Planning and Zoning scheduled for December 9 at 2:00 at the county supe meeting room at 1415 Melody Lane will consider the application. At the hearing, the Planning and Zoning Commission can approve, approve with conditions, or deny the special use request. Comments can be given the day of the meet or sent in. For written comments go here, they have to be in by noon Nov. 27 to be included in the supes packets, after that they will only be in the record. If you wish to speak either remotely or in person, fill out this form before the meeting. Speaking time is 2 minutes per person. Many Questions: There is a batch of questions about this application. Some answered and many not. Planning and Zoning can't really make informed decisions until many answers are forthcoming. These are several that need answering for clarity.
Coal Use....There were previously announced plans to wind down the use of coal and ramp up the use of renewables for generating. This deal seems to do the opposite. AEPCO/Apache GS received a $21 million grant from dept of energy recently to upgrade coal use for steam generation. Also mentioned was Another $32.5 million from an unidentified source non-governmental source. It would be useful to know what entity is supplying that money.
Natural Gas and power delivery Currently natural gas is supplied through major interstate natural gas pipeline systems connected to regional supply basins, primarily drawing from the San Juan Basin in New Mexico and the Permian Basin in Texas via networks like Kinder Morgan's El Paso Natural Gas system.
++++++++++ ++++++++++ ++++++++++ WHAT IS AI? TERMINOLOGY AND DEFINITIONS Once again I is was befuddled by terms bandied about in almost all media outlets. So here is my attempt to understand them. The industry is developing so fast that some of the terminology will not be applicable in a year or maybe even six months. <><> What is Artificial Intelligence/AI? This is a definition from Stanford University, "AI is a broad term for computer systems that can perform tasks with human-like intelligence, such as understanding language, recognizing images, learning from data, reasoning, and making decisions " What are the forms of AI? It is quite confusing as AI terms are used without coherent understanding of what they are nor how they are used. This is a simplified version... Narrow AI: It is classified as 'Narrow AI' because it is built for specific tasks, like spam filtering, chess, or recommendations. Every AI in use today falls here. Two other AI's, are the scary ones that are, so far, although often referenced as if they exist, do not yet exist. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): A hypothetical system that could learn and perform any intellectual task a human can. It doesn’t exist yet. Superintelligence (ASI): A hypothetical system that surpasses human intelligence across the board. Terms and uses: In terms of capability the various kinds of AI break down like this. The following are simplified versions that I can understand. I found it useful to think of Generative AI as the mother, and most of the other AI's as kids. There is a lot of overlap in using the different forms. Generative AI: Creates new content, including text, images, audio, video, and code. It’s an umbrella category that includes many of the models below. Discriminative/predictive AI: Classifies or predicts from input, such as “is this email spam?” or “will this customer churn?” Used for/by:
Large language models (LLMs) (a type of generative AI: Deep learning models trained on vast amounts of text to understand and generate language. Used for/by
Diffusion models: Generate images (and increasingly video/audio) by gradually refining random noise into a coherent output. Used in tools like Stable Diffusion and Midjourney. Used for/by:
Multimodal models: Handle multiple types of input or output, such as text, images, and audio, in one system. Used for/by:
Natural language processing (NLP): The broader field of working with human language, including translation, sentiment analysis, and summarization. LLMs are its current dominant approach. Used for/by:
Recommendation systems: Predict what you’ll want next. Used by:
Robotics/embodied AI: AI that perceives and acts in the physical world. Used by:
To get to these varying AI's, It is necessary to power them and that is where the data center enters. WHAT ARE DATA CENTERS? Servers & Data Centers: Until a few years ago, the term 'server farms' was used to indicate the processing of information and meant a huge room or building full of similar servers (a computer or network of computers working together on one kind of job, like serving web pages or answering search queries. “Data center” is the broader, more formal term for any facility housing computing, storage, and networking equipment, along with the power, cooling, and security systems that keep it running. Although often conflated, and people use the terms almost interchangeably, though “data center” is now the standard industry term. The Difference matters because the real change is what the machines are doing, which changes the physical requirements.
Why this matters for the public debate The controversy around new data centers mostly stems from these differences: electricity demand strains local grids and can raise rates, water use for cooling is a concern in dry regions, enviromental problems of noises, air, and waste, and the buildings employ relatively few people once built.The older server-farm era didn’t raise these issues at nearly the same intensity. One caveat: not every new data center is AI-focused. Many still serve cloud storage, streaming, and enterprise computing, and the line between the two types is blurring as companies retrofit or mix workloads. |
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