A $300 million data center project expected to boost economic development at the former Great Northern Paper Co. mill in Millinocket has been canceled, the site’s redevelopment manager said on Wednesday.
Nautilus Data Technologies introduced the planned 60-megawatt data center with great fanfare in 2021, but it did not announce that it had abandoned the effort. The Millinocket data center had been slated to be up and running by the end of 2022, bringing up to 30 jobs to the area. But the company was unable to get the artificial intelligence customer it wanted because the data center would not be able to produce enough power. It stopped work on the project last year, according to the site redevelopment company.
“It’s considered dead,” said Steve Sanders, director of mill site redevelopment for One Katahdin, the nonprofit that owns the former mill site, in an interview with the Bangor Daily News.
Nautilus did not respond to the BDN’s emails and phone calls for comment.
The data center, originally planned to be located on 13 acres of the 1,400-acre former site of the Great Northern Paper mill, was to be the cornerstone of future economic development there. While the developers of the former mill site were disappointed over the failed project, they said attracting a diverse group of companies better fits their goals rather than one big one like the paper mill, whose closure caused the once-thriving town’s demise.
“Former mill towns understand the bitter taste of industrial concentration,” said Shane Flynn, tenant recruitment manager for One North, which operates and maintains the former mill site. The mill closed permanently in 2008.
Flynn made his comment at a legislative committee hearing last week focused on a proposed bill that would limit the amount of electricity that a data center in Maine could use. The bill aims to create an environment where other businesses can develop and where town residents will have enough electricity.
Data centers are buildings that contain large amounts of computers and storage. They are increasingly popular because of applications like artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, which require high computing power and, in turn, lots of electricity. Millinocket is a good location for data centers, Flynn said, because of its cool weather and ample electricity from Brookfield Renewable, which owns dozens of dams in the state from Millinocket to Saco.
AI already uses about 15 percent of the computing power in a typical large data center as of 2024, said Jon Ippolito, a professor of new media at the University of Maine who is experimenting with AI and its energy requirements. That amount could rise to as much as 70 percent in 10 years given rapidly expanding AI applications, he said. Cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin also uses up to 50 percent of a data center’s power, he said.
Flynn said other data center companies have shown some interest in locating to One North, but no deals are imminent. The data centers would have to be smaller than the scuttled Nautilus one because Millinocket does not have the scale for the types of huge data centers required for AI and cryptocurrency applications.
Instead, One North is courting companies without data-intensive needs. One, EME Biofuels, plans to build a liquid biofuels factory using local forestry products. Sanders said the company is in the process of applying for state permits and creating a detailed site plan. The second one, Great Northern Salmon, is also applying for permits now for a land-based salmon farm. If the two companies get their permits, they may start building out their operations in about one year.
But first, more work needs to be done to clean up the former mill site. One Katahdin already has put in some roads, water and power as part of the $7 million first phase of development. The second, $7 million phase will add internet connectivity to EME Biofuels this year, Sanders said.
A bigger project in the works is the $14 million cleanup of sludge from the mill on the brownfields site where Great Northern Salmon plans to locate. The developers need to move 170,000 cubic yards of sludge — the equivalent of about 50,000 dump truck loads — located in 27 acres of lagoons to a new location on the former mill site. Cleanup started last September, paused for the winter, and will restart next week, he said.
So far, One Katahdin has been able to still tap its brownfields funding from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has been under fire by the Trump administration, Sanders said.
Sanders said it became clear soon after signing an agreement with the data center that it was not the best partner for his group’s redevelopment plans. He sees the biofuels business as important for the forest economy, and the land-based salmon farm as critical to having a sustainable supply of the fish.
“We import about 95 percent of our Atlantic salmon,” he said. “Having the aquaculture here means a shorter time to market.”
Lori Valigra reports on the environment for the BDN’s Maine Focus investigative team. Reach her at [email protected]. Support for this reporting is provided by the Unity Foundation, a fund at the Maine Community Foundation and donations by BDN readers.
