PROJECT JUPITERForce Upgrade

Do not cancel it. Force the upgrade. Six conditions, one signature.

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This petition is a count of support, not a legal instrument. We hand the names and ZIP codes to the county commissioners at a public meeting before the next lease vote and to the legislators sponsoring the bills. What binds is the record: a written comment on NMED Permit 10883 and three minutes at the microphone on a second or fourth Tuesday. Start with your commissioner: email your commissioner, script included →

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The petition text, word for word · tap to fold

To the Doña Ana County Board of Commissioners, the New Mexico Environment Department, and the New Mexico Legislature:

We do not ask you to cancel Project Jupiter. We ask you to force its upgrade. Before the first fuel cell turns on in Santa Teresa, make the following conditions binding on the air permit, the water permits, and the $165 billion in Industrial Revenue Bonds:

1
Capture-ready fuel-cell stacks from the first day of operation, with capture metered against a 90% target once the storage line is connected (about year 5) and the results public.
Their plan today: 8.8 million tons of CO₂ a year are permitted to go straight into the sky. No capture is planned.
Why it matters: The exhaust is about 95% CO₂ once dried, the easiest kind to catch; the maker of the fuel cells has announced the equipment, no plant runs it yet, and the federal 45Q credit pays $85 a ton toward it.
2
A continuous public air monitor on every fuel-cell cluster, with permit limits set for the capture configuration.
Their plan today: The draft permit estimates 37 tons of NOx a year from four tests of one 65 kW unit, scaled to 2,275 stacks, and requires no continuous stack monitor.
Why it matters: Sunland Park has failed the federal ozone standard since 2018 and this would be the largest fuel-cell plant in the world by about a hundred times. Public meters let anyone check the air the same day.
3
The computers' waste heat offered to greenhouse growers on the empty acres beside the cooling fans, local growers first.
Their plan today: All the heat, about 2,462 megawatts, is blown into the desert by fans. The land beside them stays bare.
Why it matters: About 150 acres of greenhouses would grow up to about 60 million pounds of food a year and add 600 to 1,000 jobs. Dutch data centers already sit beside greenhouse growers, and Germany requires data centers to reuse a share of their heat.
4
The NMSU-designed water plant built and handed to the towns' utility: 5 million gallons a day of clean water from salty groundwater, the towns' reclaimed water put back into the fresh aquifer under a state storage-and-recovery permit, and the unused part of the old farm's water right left in the aquifer in a State Engineer conservation program instead of pumped.
Their plan today: Drinking water is taken from the local utility and more is pumped from the fresh aquifer. The signed deal has the companies fund a $250,000 study; the county is now designing a smaller plant with its own Jupiter tax money.
Why it matters: The plant is already designed and priced at $269.5 million, about 0.54% of the $50 billion first phase (0.16% of the bond cap). With the towns' fresh wells pumping far less and about 2 million gallons a day of reclaimed water going back underground, as El Paso has done since 1985 and Rio Rancho since 2017, the local decline slows. Leaving the farm right in a conservation program costs a filing, and state law protects an enrolled right from forfeiture.
5
The county tax break paid only as permanent jobs are verified each year, and a $50 million training institute on site so the jobs go to people who live here.
Their plan today: The signed agreement binds the company to 750 jobs and $4 million for workforce programs. Whether missing the 750 is a lease default is not public; the leases are not posted.
Why it matters: With greenhouses, the water plant and capture, about 3,000 permanent jobs are possible. The county's own IRB policy already allows repayment or higher payments when job goals are missed; verification makes the number real instead of advertised.
6
A closure and monitoring bond posted in the lease, sized by an independent engineer and revised every five years, so the wells, the land and the public meters are cared for after the companies are gone.
Their plan today: The signed agreement's obligations run only as long as the bonds are outstanding. It has no decommissioning, restoration or bond clause; after the 30-year lease the shareholders own the site.
Why it matters: Servers last five years, the lease thirty, the aquifer and the stored CO₂ far longer. Doña Ana County already requires this bond of solar farms. It is the only instrument written to outlive the companies.

Same land. Same buildings. About 8% more on the $50 billion first phase, most of it repayable by the federal capture credit. Clean air, new water, local food, and about 3,000 permanent jobs instead of the 750 they signed for. Their own plan, finished properly.