Things are moving into high gear for Prometheus Hyperscale, a Wyoming-based data center developer that plans to build two 1.2-gigawatt data centers, one in Evanston and the other in Casper.
The company recently announced that oil and gas tycoon Bernard Looney will take over as CEO to lead the two projects, which are worth about $30 billion, making them among the largest private equity investments Wyoming has ever seen.
Looney was the chief executive of the British oil company BP from 2020 to 2023. Although he was fired due to allegations that he could not disclose inappropriately to reveal a previous romantic relationship, Looney has three decades of experience with BP dealing with billion-dollar projects for the company.
“In my career, I have been responsible for overseeing some of the largest energy projects in the world,” he told Cowboy State Daily. We built a gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Georgia, Turkey, to Greece, to Italy, to Europe.
Looney has been involved in several other major oil and gas projects around the world – in Papua and Indonesia, West Africa, the United States and Trinidad.
“So I have a lot of experience with construction projects,” he said. “And we’re in the process of building large projects with very large numbers of $30 billion in Wyoming alone.”
With that kind of experience, Looney’s moves would be news anywhere. The fact that he’s eyeing his comeback in Wyoming — far from the traditional powerhouses of London, New York, or Silicon Valley — is a surprising turn of events.
Looney sees it as a natural fit.
“I want to do this because I think AI is the future,” he said. “My friend said ‘AI or die.’ So AI is the future. America has a strategic goal of winning the war in the AI space, and if we want to win AI, we have to be strong. ”
However, Wyoming exports 15 times more energy than it consumes, Looney pointed out.
“We want to keep some of that energy in Wyoming and see if we can do something about it,” he said. And there’s nothing better I can think of than to take some of that energy and turn it into electrons and take the electrons and turn them into intelligence.
Looney’s Take Prices on Power and Data Centers
Energy costs are high on the list of concerns Wyomingites have about data centers.
Energy costs in Wyoming are already on the rise, and companies like Rocky Mountain Power are looking for a 30% rate increase by 2023. Many consumers are worried that the data centers will make the already runaway problem worse.
Looney acknowledges the fear, but says the company plans to be more cautious when it comes to that.
“Most of the power we plan to produce in these two projects will be what they call a post-meter, or island solution,” he said. “Basically we’re going to make our own energy.
“Over time, we will connect to the grid, but if anything, we should be able to help the grid instead of putting a load on it.”
Looney does not believe the plans will raise energy costs because Prometheus plans to produce most of its power and will change its fuel mix.
He said: “We’re going to start with natural gas. Then, over time, we’ll get into solar, we’ll get into wind, and then we can put together some of these small modular (nuclear) reactors over time.”
The company has signed a letter of intent with Sam Altman sponsored by Oklo Partners for a 20-year nuclear power purchase agreement.
Oklo is developing high-speed fission power plants that it says will provide clean, reliable and cost-effective energy at scale.
It has received a permit to use the site from the United States Department of Energy (DOE) and is developing advanced fuel systems at both the DOE and US National Laboratories.
“We want to do this as responsibly as possible,” Looney said. “So, it’s going to start with that whole game. And the good news is Wyoming has all of the above, which is another reason it’s a good place for us to do this.”
What about Water?
Water is a close second on the list of concerns Wyomingites have about data centers.
Looney, who is a drilling engineer by profession, said the company has developed a cooling system for its AI facilities, which will increase the cooling of the heat exchanger by using water from drinking water well below the drinking water table.
“We will dig more wells, and we will make sure that we are not connected to any water source that supplies water to the community,” he said. Therefore, we will circulate the water from there through the plant and back to the ground.
Prometheus founder Trenton Thornock once told Cowboy State Daily that the issue of water is one he personally shares, growing as he did in a fifth-generation farming operation near Evanston.
“We’re a farm family. We want to avoid that,” he said.
By cycling non-potable water from underground in an enclosed space, facilities can heat up without using large amounts of fresh water.
Keeping Wyoming’s Youth Home
For Looney, a big part of his focus on Wyoming is how the data centers in Evanston and Casper can help keep Wyoming’s youth at home.
Each plant, above the initial 1.25 gigawatts, can employ more than 600 people.
In addition, Looney added that the ratio is the reason why the number of jobs related to the two projects is so high.
“Evanston, we think it could go to 4 or 5 gigawatts and Casper could go to maybe 2, 2.5 gigawatts,” he said. “And these will be skills, they should be good paying jobs.”
Looney doesn’t believe the company will have a problem hiring workers in Wyoming, if needed, but that’s not the primary goal.
It seeks to build a pipeline of talent that will train Wyomingites for positions that will keep more Wyoming youth in the state.
Thornock previously spoke to Cowboy State Daily about having friends who felt forced to leave the state because they couldn’t find the right high-paying opportunities, and said it was a personal matter for him.
Prometheus has unveiled plans for an educational pipeline to train data center workers in Wyoming, and that investment will not only continue, but could spread to other centers, Looney said.
“Sometime later this month there will be a day at Casper College where people will be taken through the operation of the data center and what it takes to run that,” he said. “And that’s just the beginning of us wanting to invest in education.”
Sponsors include US Intelligence
Prometheus’ quest has attracted significant backers, including a venture capital arm that invests in US intelligence agencies.
Looney confirmed that In-Q-Tel not only participated in Prometheus, but will place a representative on the company’s board.
“I think it’s a big vote of confidence in what we’re doing,” Looney said. “Because, as you can imagine, they have every opportunity to invest their money, and they chose to invest with us.”
Such participation also underscores how policymakers and intelligence experts view Prometheus Hyperscale’s Wyoming projects.
“There’s a growing confidence that we’re building a world-class company,” Looney said. “We are talking about a pipeline that we can see approaching 10 gigawatts and more.
“Across the United States, we can see a huge demand for capital investment — numbers I know from my oil and gas days, but they’re still staggering numbers.”
And those odd numbers are what Prometheus is planning for Evanston and Casper.
“The two projects in Wyoming will cost more than $30 billion,” Looney said. “And I think Trenton and the board have enough confidence that now is the time for the company to move to the next level, and they felt that I could, because of my experience, help them with that.”
Renee Jean can be achieved at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
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