BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - A proposed development by SpaceX at the Gibbons Creek Reservoir in Grimes County is turning heads, with eyes from across the tech industry focused on the rural county anchoring the southeastern end of the Brazos Valley. They include economists at Texas A&M's Private Enterprise Research Center (PERC), who studied the project's potential impact on Grimes County and the larger Brazos Valley.
The proposed chip manufacturing plant, known at SpaceX as the "Terafab" project, would be vertically integrated, handling all stages of manufacturing for new semiconductor chips used in Tesla products and eventually in AI data centers deployed in orbit around the earth. The plant would be a joint venture among SpaceX, Tesla, and Intel. The project's ultimate ambition is to provide a terawatt of AI computing power each year to the technology giants, more than 10 times the current capacity of all AI infrastructure, and allow humanity to become a "galactic civilization" capable of interstellar travel.
While SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said Grimes County is just "one of several" sites under consideration for the massive construction project, Grimes County commissioners have held or scheduled several official meetings about potential tax breaks for the project, culminating in a public hearing scheduled for June 3, where a final vote on any abatement might be taken.

Anyone catch Matt Walsh's podcast on this subject today? I think the anti-AI datacenter hype is overblown but I'd NIMBY if it popped up next door.

https://instagr.am/p/DYPxeGPxkfk

Funny post to me. I read that pic as " CHIRP manufacturing. IYKYK

What was that super endangered salamder they found in the Austin area several years back? Maybe they find that is living in the reservoir.

San Marcos Salamander
I worked at Aquarena Springs...only reason I know.

To be honest, I have only seen one. It was at the Wonderworld location. Of the thousands of hours underwater day or night, at Aquarena I never came across one. If I remember correctly the salamander, like the Golden Worbler I think, was a pawn in a bigger game.

Surprised no one has brought up the freshwater prawns.

Waterdogs work better.

MyNameIsJeff said:

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P.H. Dexippus said:

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Anyone catch Matt Walsh's podcast on this subject today? I think the anti-AI datacenter hype is overblown but I'd NIMBY if it popped up next door.

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It's not a datacenter, it's a chip manufacturing facility. Which I would think means there will be significantly more long-term jobs created.

I'm less against this than I am other in the area, as this would be in the location of an existing powerplant that is now surrounded by solar fields.

Edit 1: Looks at the Grimes CAD site for a more current satellite image showing the solar fields - they're not shown in Google. Unless I'm mistaken on the proposed location, this isn't going in the middle of someone's ranch, it's in an area that is already industrial/energy generation.

Edit 2: I actually had a conversation Wednesday with someone who lives very close. They were incorrectly hung up on it being a data center instead of manufacturing. I think this could be a huge positive for the BCS area.

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the solar fields are about 5 miles north of the old power plant

maroon barchetta said:

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I'm more agreeable to taking an existing industrial location and turning it into something new than I am buying undisturbed land and starting from scratch.

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I'm with you on this. 100%. This seems like a pretty basic and common sense approach. I much prefer it and I wish that's how this worked.

But the deal with the damn things is that it's NICE out in the country. Counties want that tax revenue, very few regulations and permitting required, and if you start with Farmer Bobs 400 acre cornfield, it's nice and flat and costs less to develop. My opinion is that's why these end up here.

Plus, Farmer Bobs is 83 years old and he's tired of growing corn and he'll sell for a smidge above market value and be set up for the rest of what's left of his life and have some left for the kids. It's just too much to pass up. Too much benefit to both sides.

Going to the city, permits, regulations, and ya gotta tear down the section 8 housing and that's racist and ugh…so much hassle.

I think we are going to have to live with this stuff. We can't ban them. We can regulate the dog **** out of them so they are simply not attractive options but when it comes to someone like Musk….thats not going to be a problem of any kind. I'd like hard core overbearing laws against them for noise and light pollution. If it makes noise that you can hear from the property boundary, it's got to be fixed. If the light isn't on 10pm to 6 am 75% output reduction protocols, that's got to be fixed. If it's not something the people of dark sky communities or country folks would like in terms of light and noise….its not happening. That kind of thing.

Well check that out. I never knew there was that many Solar fields around the Gibbons Plant area.

I agree it makes more sense using an area that was already industrial. Not sure if the video ro anything shows the exact area that the proposed plant would take up.

This is my understanding of the location (which may be incorrect). There's another older solar field about halfway between Gibbons and Iola, but these have popped up in the last year or two.

The gist is that it seems like the immediate area is already "tainted", if you will.

maroon barchetta said:

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It's not a data center.

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The one proposed in Angleton is, which is what I was talking about. The Elon Gibbons Creek is a chip manufacturing plant.

BrazosDog02 said:

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It's not as simple as it seems. You can't dictate who a landowner sells to. You can't 'ban' a datacenter, amazon warehouse, or Elon's dumb ass brain spasm du jour.....

City and local governments are pretty limited to what they can and cannot do. You can issue a moratorium, but you cannot issue a permanent ban. All the counties issuing moratoriums are only kicking the can down the road for a year or so. It will be built and when it does, it will probably be worse than it would have been.

Plus, local governments don't WANT to do that. I don't think people understand the influx of money and improvements that come with these things. People ***** about the tax breaks, they give the data centers, but even with those breaks, there is a FOOK TON of of money coming in.

I hate these to the point that is they were domestically terrorized and every single one was razed to the ground, I would turn a blind eye, but we cannot deny the reason these exist and will continue to exist.

The only solution there is is to make them as palatable as possible and right now is the golden hour to make that happen with the public outrage over them. Water usage of them is a dead end argument. Noise and light complaints are where it's at. If these buildings popped up and were quiet and dark, none of this would be huge deal for anyone.

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Water useage isn't a dead end argument, even down here on the coast. The whole "new designs use almost no water" isn't exactly true. They use less water, sure, but they still consume a significant amount.

Agree on the noise and light issue. They also generate a ton of heat and consume a massive amount of electricity.

There was one that was proposed for another part in my county but the tax abatement was shot down, not sure if it will be a viable project since that happened. Hope the commissioners get the point on this one too and refuse to grant a tax abatement. F 'em. If I have to pay stupid high taxes against my will, so should they.