Amazon turning to Natural gas power plant for AI data center – To emit more CO2 ‘than any other power plant in the country’ – Amazon spokeswoman: ‘The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge’
Amazon is investing in a large-scale natural-gas-burning power plant as part of a huge data center in Texas, the company confirmed on Friday, a facility that could become the largest single source of climate pollution in the United States.
Amazon and other tech giants are racing to build enough data centers to keep up with surging demand for artificial intelligence services, and to secure the electricity to power them. A company spokeswoman said in a statement that its planned data center, in Pecos County, would be “powered by new on-site generation that won’t raise electricity costs for Texas families.”
The new gas-burning plant, if built to specifications, would be permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, regulatory records show, more planet-warming gases than any other power plant in the country.
Amazon has been struggling to meet its promise that it would effectively eliminate its planet-warming emissions by 2040 as part of the Climate Pledge, a voluntary agreement among companies that Amazon co-founded several years ago. Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas is the main driver of global warming, which is dangerously heating the planet.