> But why would they go this direction?

sibling comment has it, they want to do power generation on site and not connected to the grid and all the PITA that come with that. Further, they can pitch power independence to the locals which removes a big argument from the anti-datacenter crowd. Finally, the power gen i saw at Stargate in Abilene TX which was maybe 10 units (if that's what they're called) took up maybe 30 acres of land so they're not very big compared to the rest of the campus.