A Tale Of Two Towns: Cheyenne Pushes Back On Data Centers, Evanston Not So Much

Cheyenne and Evanston are hearing the same pitch from data centers—closed-loop cooling, big megawatts, and even bigger paychecks. Both communities have packed meeting rooms with standing-room-only crowds. But the tone in these communities separated by 359 miles of Interstate 80 has been markedly different. In Cheyenne, the reaction has been much more strident and emotional. In Evanston, opposition is much more muted.

The contrast was readily apparent at a Uinta County Planning and Zoning Commission meeting Wednesday night, where commissioners voted to recommend approval of Prometheus Hyperscale’s conditional use permit and zoning change for its 1.25-gigawatt data center. Cheyenne was just coming off an emotion-packed night of testimony over a 12-month data center moratorium that began at 6 p.m. Tuesday and did not end until after midnight, splitting the community roughly half for and half against. In Uinta County, the commission chambers were also packed, but when their turn at the microphone came, not many residents put their thoughts on record. Most sat listening silently. Those who did speak were thoughtful and spoke with even tones.