Residents of Eastport (Elastport, Maine) joined local Indian tribal representatives and environmentalists in opposing DeepGreen Western Passage’s construction of an underwater artificial intelligence information center in the Bay of Fundy. Opponents of the plan worry it will have a negative impact on local ecosystems, particularly by warming the bay’s waters. Report Maine Monitor.
In February of this year, DeepGreen applied for a 48-month preliminary approval from the federal regulatory agency FERC. Engineering and environmental studies will be carried out on the roughly 160-hectare site in the Bay of Fundy, where plans are planned to eventually deploy an autonomous underwater data center with a modular architecture that would allow connection to third-party power sources, specifically Ocean Renewables’ tidal turbines. (ORPC), bypassing the local power grid.
ORPC has previously implemented a program to use tidal turbines for local microgrids. The memorandum of understanding is in effect until 2025, and in 2021 the project provided federal funding to Eastport and a dozen other cities under the Energy Transition Initiative Partnership Program (ETIPP). ORPC’s preliminary permit for the site expires in February 2026.
Photo credit: Chris Henry/unsplash.com
In DeepGreen’s filing that same month, FERC found four critical flaws. Therefore, all of the Indian tribes affected by the project have not been named, nor have the object’s exact physical dimensions and configuration been named. Furthermore, the company did not explain why an operating area of one hundred and fifty hectares was required if the facility itself occupied much less space and was for some reason included in the application area beyond the project boundaries.
DeepGreen amended its application to clarify its relationship with the tribe, reduce the area of the application from 162 hectares to 11 hectares, reduce the size of the site and review the materials used, and reduce the capacity from 51 megawatts to just 15 megawatts. It is planned to install 16 offshore turbines in the first phase, and separate licenses must be obtained for the second phase – 34. Initially, 170 turbines were planned to be used simultaneously.
However, Eastport residents ultimately intervened, resulting in the city council unanimously imposing a 180-day moratorium on all data center projects (land-based, underwater, submersible, submersible, and related infrastructure). The Security Council has the power to lift a suspension early or extend it, although the latter is difficult to do. A similar DeepGreen project in Alaska that installed 330-350 turbines has not yet received FERC approval.
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