Amazon behind massive private gas plant for new data centers
The project would let Amazon power its AI campus off-grid with gas turbines that could emit 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, permits show.
- Amazon is developing a data center campus in Pecos County, Texas, featuring an on-site natural gas power plant permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide annually, potentially making it the country's largest single source of climate pollution.
- High demand for artificial intelligence has triggered a data center boom, with facilities seeking 474 gigawatts of electricity—approximately 90 percent of new power requests on the Texas grid—prompting tech companies to invest in fossil fuel sources.
- The United States has at least 82 data center-linked gas generators in development, which could collectively emit enough carbon dioxide in one year to rival the output of half the passenger cars in the country.
- Republican Governor Greg Abbott paused new data center projects in Texas this week, ordering state regulators to audit proposed facilities because, as he stated, "Texans must come first" regarding grid capacity.
- Amazon said it is "exploring opportunities for solar energy and battery storage on site" while backing 40 renewable projects in Texas and designing the Pecos facility to transition to grid-connected service eventually.
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88 Articles
Amazon Plans an AI Data Center That Could Emit 33 Million Tons of CO2
Amazon just confirmed it’s paying for a private gas plant big enough to out-power almost every plant currently running in the US. It’s all to keep one AI data center running. The move shows how hard the AI boom is straining America’s power grid. It also shows why a tech giant is quietly becoming an energy company too. Here’s what Amazon is building in Texas — and why it might break its own climate promise. Amazon’s AI Data Center Plans in Texas …
Amazon's new Texas data center campus could become nation's largest polluter
Amazon’s latest data center project may end up becoming the worst polluter in the U.S. — and it will be located four hours west of San Antonio. The megacorporation has bought land and acquired permits in West Texas’ Pecos County for an artificial intelligence data center campus powered by a 7.65-gigawatt natural gas power plant, the […] The post Amazon’s new Texas data center campus could become nation’s largest polluter appeared first on San An…
In the US state of Texas, the country's largest gas power plant is currently being built with a CO2 emission of 33 million tons per year. However, the energy is not to land in the electricity grid, but only in the data centers of Amazon.
Amazon Is Building the Country’s Single Most Polluting Power Plant for a Texas Data Center
Way back in the pre-pandemic before times of the long, long ago–also known as the year 2019–Amazon initiated and co-founded a global project called The Climate Pledge, in which it goaded and enticed more than 700 other partner companies to declare that they would all seek to become carbon neutral by various target points, primarily by reducing and offsetting emissions of greenhouse gases. Then commercial AI showed up on the scene, along with the…
The energy infrastructure contradicts a promise of 'zero pollutants' established by the company in 2019
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