The world's largest data center was supposed to run on 100% natural gas. Utah's Republican governor says 'never.'

This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and The Salt Lake Tribune, a nonprofit newsroom in Utah.

A sprawling, 40,000-acre data center planned for northern Utah has stirred up controversy across the state over the past month, partly because of the pollution it’s expected to contribute to a region that already struggles with smog.

Officials with the quasi-governmental Military Installation Development Authority, or MIDA, which approved the project and created tax incentives to spur its development, have become de facto cheerleaders for the data center campus, called the Stratos Project. They say Kevin O’Leary, the Canadian TV personality and the main backer of Stratos, specifically selected a remote valley north of the Great Salt Lake because a gas pipeline runs through it.

The plant that will generate electricity for the data complex would be powered “100 percent off the Ruby Pipeline,” a MIDA official said in April.

But after weeks of protests, reams of comments against the project, and disgruntled Utahns digging into state leaders’ finances and family businesses, the state’s Republican governor has now asserted the project will “never” be solely powered by natural gas.