# 500 to Fewer Than 12. One Office Holds the Pen. > More than 500 comments landed on a North Slope AI data center, and fewer than a dozen backed it. Published 2026-07-24 by Alaska AI. 9 slides. Canonical: https://alaskaaihq.com/archive/2026-07-24/ ## The story Form letters lacking substance. 500 said no. One office decides. A square mile of gravel. 26 miles from Deadhorse. Bigger than the whole grid. Not every objection is equal. Your bill is the weak argument. The real fight is land, gravel, gas. Form letters lacking substance. When 500 say no and fewer than a dozen say yes, should one office hold the pen? ## What we verified - Alaska DNR's Division of Oil and Gas issued a preliminary decision dated May 12, 2026 regarding the Stak Energy lease (ADL 422741). [Alaska DNR Online Public Notices (ADL 422741)](https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Notices/View.aspx?id=223817), report, 2026-05-12. - The decision would grant STAK Energy Corporation a 50-year lease of 715.4 acres of state land. [Alaska DNR Online Public Notices](https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Notices/View.aspx?id=223817), report, 2026-05-12. - The site is located adjacent to the Dalton Highway approximately 26 miles south of Deadhorse. [Alaska DNR Online Public Notices](https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Notices/View.aspx?id=223817), report, 2026-05-12. - The site is near Dalton Highway Milepost 390. [Northern Alaska Environmental Center](https://northern.org/news/stak-energy-campus-what-the-states-lease-documents-reveal-about-scale-risk-and-unanswered-questions/), report, 2026-05-28. - The proposed use is a commercial natural-gas-powered energy facility including modular high-performance computing (AI data center) units. [Alaska DNR Online Public Notices](https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Notices/View.aspx?id=223817), report, 2026-05-12. - The project proposes 1 to 3 gigawatts of on-site natural-gas-fired generation. [Northern Alaska Environmental Center](https://northern.org/news/stak-energy-campus-what-the-states-lease-documents-reveal-about-scale-risk-and-unanswered-questions/), report, 2026-05-28. - The facility would consume 350 to 500 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, roughly 128 to 183 billion cubic feet per year. [Northern Alaska Environmental Center](https://northern.org/news/stak-energy-campus-what-the-states-lease-documents-reveal-about-scale-risk-and-unanswered-questions/), report, 2026-05-28. - Reported cost is about $500 million for initial site development and more than $10 billion for the total project. [Northern Alaska Environmental Center](https://northern.org/news/stak-energy-campus-what-the-states-lease-documents-reveal-about-scale-risk-and-unanswered-questions/), report, 2026-05-28. - Site work includes a principal gravel pad of approximately 640 acres, a 1.8-mile gravel access road, and roughly 7.1 million cubic yards of gravel fill. [Northern Alaska Environmental Center](https://northern.org/news/stak-energy-campus-what-the-states-lease-documents-reveal-about-scale-risk-and-unanswered-questions/), report, 2026-05-28. - The public comment window originally closed at 4:30 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time on June 15, 2026, and was extended to July 17, 2026 due to comment volume. [Alaska DNR Online Public Notices](https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/Notices/View.aspx?id=223817), report, 2026-05-12. - More than 500 public comments were received, with fewer than a dozen in support of the project. [Anchorage Daily News](https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2026/07/07/data-center-critics-flood-alaska-land-managers-with-opposition-to-north-slope-project/), report, 2026-07-07. - Stak Chief Strategy Officer John Boyle, a former Alaska DNR commissioner, said the vast majority of comments are form letters lacking substance. [Northern Journal](https://www.northernjournal.com/data-center-critics-flood-alaska-land-managers-with-opposition-to-north-slope-project/), report, 2026-07-03. - The generators could produce a gigawatt or more, roughly 30% more than the peak demand of urban Alaska's entire grid. [Anchorage Daily News](https://www.adn.com/business-economy/2026/07/07/data-center-critics-flood-alaska-land-managers-with-opposition-to-north-slope-project/), report, 2026-07-07. Slides and the deck PDF are linked from the canonical page.