Pixie Lee
A data centre on a cattle station. Four billion litres of groundwater a year. And the Territory's own regulator says it has low confidence in the plan. Good. Somebody read the fine print before I did.
Energy North wants to build Project Ares on Murranji station in the Barkly, 19,150 hectares, with a solar farm, gas generators, a sealed airstrip, a rail line and a workers' village for 4,300 people. The NT EPA listed ten potential impacts across air, water, people and land, found insufficient information on most of them, and paused its assessment to talk to the national regulator. The application isn't dead. The company has to come back with a full environmental impact statement, and it says that's what the statement is for.
Here's the bit I keep coming back to. Victoria just banned drinking water for cooling. The federal data centre standards aren't due to be legislated until 2027. So the biggest proposals are landing in the gap, in the places with the fewest rules and the least water.
My question? Four billion litres a year out of a desert aquifer. Who measured what's down there, and who's checking next year?
Source: ABC News, 2026-10-08
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