Data centers in Amador County, California: 1 project mapped

Imagery: Esri, Maxar

Amador County's one data center proposal is an unusual one: an AI computing site powered by a restarted biomass plant. In January 2026, NewYork GreenCloud, a Plattsburgh, New York company founded in 2024 with no data center yet built, announced it had bought the idled Buena Vista Biomass Power plant at 4655 Coal Mine Road in Ione, next to Harrah's Northern California. The plant began as a coal-fired station on a former lignite mine, was shut in the mid-1990s, and was repowered in 2009 as an 18 MW biomass plant before financial trouble idled it. NewYork GreenCloud first said it would rebuild it as a 41 MW plant using a biomass-to-pyrolysis system from its partner BucSha Energy, fuelled by regional forestry and farm residue. It would supply power behind the meter to a liquid-cooled GPU data center on site, and the company calls the result "carbon-negative" because the process makes biochar that stores carbon. It has announced a four-year deal with Atlas Cloud AI to host 2,304 Nvidia Blackwell GPUs there, which it said would be fully deployed by February 2026, with an initial $250 million investment. The plan has since been scaled back. A project spokesperson told the Calaveras Enterprise in September 2026 that it no longer includes a pyrolysis process; the company will instead apply to Amador County for permits to renovate the existing 18 MW biomass plant, which would supply up to 16 MW to the data center and use roughly 2 MW to run itself.

County District 3 Supervisor Jeff Brown visited the site in March and again on July 12, 2026. He told Central Sierra Broadcasting that about $4 million had been spent bringing the plant back and another $171 million was planned to modernise it and build the data center. The land is zoned appropriately, he said, but after his July visit he reported: "At this time, they still have not applied for a construction permit or completed an Environmental Impact Report for the AI Center." The company was aiming for a soft test of the plant in August. Its CEO, Joseph Church, did not respond to the broadcaster's requests for comment. In neighbouring Calaveras County, supervisors on August 11 directed staff to bring back a temporary data center moratorium, citing demands on local power and water and doubts about job numbers.

Every project above is drawn from public records, filings and local reporting. Each row links to what it is based on. Statuses change, so check the source date before you rely on one. Found something wrong? Write to [email protected] and it gets fixed.