A Delaware-registered company called DeepGreen has filed an initial permit application to study a hyperscale underwater data center in the Cook Inlet | Tikahtnu forelands region, a geographical bottleneck near Nikiski. Applying for this federal permit allows DeepGreen to study the feasibility of the project and prevents someone else from developing the same wild idea. While studying a proposal seems benign, allowing DeepGreen to collect data and assets associated with the project has real risks.
The public can comment on DeepGreen’s federal permit application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) until November 2nd. Their website is cumbersome, and folks will need to enter their contact information before commenting. Yet each entry carries legal weight and will be considered as FERC decides to issue or deny DeepGreen’s permit. Check out This Toolkit for more information on the project and for talking points to include in comments.
Inletkeeper is filing a motion to intervene with FERC, stating our opposition to the project and interest in protecting the Tikahtnu watershed and the life it sustains. The Kenai Peninsula Borough (KPB) has filed a similar motion but takes a neutral stance on the DeepGreen project. KPB states, “The siting and construction of the proposed Project has potential to significantly affect the citizens and businesses of the Kenai Peninsula Borough,” but stops short of describing that effect.
If you are as concerned about this project as we are, please join us in urging KPB Mayor Micciche and the Borough Assembly to oppose DeepGreen’s project at every stage. All borough residents can comment on record during Assembly meetings; the next meeting will be Oct. 20th at 6 pm. Assembly meetings are broadcast live on public radio and accessible virtually through a link on the KPB website. Borough residents may also voice their concerns directly to the Mayor’s office at mayor@kpb.gov.
This is essentially a records race. The survey data DeepGreen collects and the investments it makes can be considered assets, and its legal right to proceed will strengthen as it collects them. Equally, the more public outcry and individual comments that enter the public record, the more local government and state and federal regulators will be forced to step in.
DeepGreen’s potential mess of 350 tidal turbines, 66 individual server “hives,” and their associated infrastructure has no place in the center of a critical migratory corridor for endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and the salmon that define us as Alaskans. The project poses significant environmental harms, including potential toxic copper pollution, a substantial increase in underwater noise, and the heat a hyperscale data center will generate.
The economic risk is significant as well. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimates the total value of Upper Cook Inlet commercial salmon fisheries to average between $20 and $30 million annually over the last three years. These fisheries will almost certainly be impacted, and those effects will increase over time as generations of salmon are disoriented and suffer the impacts of a significant heat source between their ocean habitat and spawning streams.
The DeepGreen permit application details infrastructure capable of generating and consuming 100 megawatts of electricity- roughly equal to the average peak demand for the entire Kenai Peninsula. Of course, DeepGreen boasts that its facility will generate enough electricity to meet its own demand and sell power back to the grid, exclusively through tidal generation. But what about slack tides, daily periods when tidal currents slow, stop entirely, then reverse direction? There is a very real possibility that the project could double peak demand on our power grid, several times a day.
It can be scary when something massive and unknown looms up quietly out of the blue. Fortunately, we are not alone, and we have plenty of tools to counter dangerously uninformed projects like DeepGreen’s proposed hyperscale data center in Tikahtnu. According to data gathered by energy-focused Heatmap News, about half of all data center projects that have met local backlash this year have ultimately been canceled.
“The number of canceled data centers speaks to the vast and growing grassroots opposition to these projects in communities across the country. The fact that many of these projects were defeated in just the past few months speaks to the upward trajectory of this opposition movement,” Mitch Jones, a policy director at Food and Water Watch, an environmental group that opposes AI data centers, said in a statement.
It’s true that Alaskan residents are being inundated with public comment opportunities on major industrial development projects and federal deregulation, and it is easy to feel overwhelmed. However, bipartisan legislation is moving through the US Congress this fall that would make public comments absolutely critical. The Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act of 2026 (BAAJA) would clear a wide path through the federal permitting process for most large-scale industrial projects, including data centers. It would gut the body of regulation known as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), which requires developers to assess the impacts of their projects. One provision of BAAJA would only allow opposition from individuals, states, and Tribes who had previously commented on record about the projects they oppose. It would also reduce the number of projects that require public comment periods at all. We would be wise to speak up while we still can.
Please join Inletkeeper in opposing the dangerous DeepGreen project by writing a public comment on the FERC application and contacting the KPB Mayor’s office and Borough Assembly. You can share our toolkit and follow Inletkeeper’s social media to catch the latest developments in our effort to prioritize water, land, and energy for life—not for data.