Amazon funds biggest gas power plant in US despite climate pledge - Ars Technica

Absolute power? Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution Amazon announces first off-the-grid data center in race to reap AI profits. 138 Credit: eric1513 | iStock / Getty Images Plus Credit: eric1513 | iStock / Getty Images Plus Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only   Learn more Minimize to nav Amazon’s artificial intelligence ambitions will soon be partly fueled by a natural gas-burning power plant in Texas that “could become the largest single source of climate pollution in the United States,” The New York Times reported. These gas-burning plants are increasingly lumped into data center projects. They produce harmful pollutants, which can accelerate climate change impacts and harm public health—contributing to conditions like asthma, heart disease, lung cancer, and strokes. Some communities are demanding more stringent environmental reviews, but the Trump administration favors fast-tracking that can include skipping the permitting process entirely. Since Elon Musk’s xAI controversially began relying on gas turbines last spring to power its biggest AI data center, Colossus, there has been public backlash to off-the-grid data centers like the one Amazon is building. Notably, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Mississippi sued xAI to get Musk’s gas turbines turned off in June. That spurred the Trump administration to join the fight, backing xAI and arguing that citizens have no power to enforce the Clean Air Act. However, as xAI and Trump pushed to dismiss the lawsuit, reports show that other AI giants have largely ignored mounting public criticism since it was filed. They’ve increasingly invested in various ways to avoid permitting discussions and supply their own power—including Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Oracle. Together with Amazon’s investments, these alternative power plant projects swiftly securing approvals have become a harbinger that, unlike other data center fights that have successfully blocked $130 billion in projects so far this year, resistance against gas-burning plants may be futile. A potential loss in the xAI fight could devastate momentum in communities hoping to keep up the fight for more transparency. Dozens of firms have begun sourcing their own power supplies in the past year, but the Texas project is reportedly Amazon’s first big investment in an off-the-grid data center. After Amazon confirmed that it’s investing in the power plant to supply the energy needed for a massive planned data center project in Pecos County, the company boasted this ensured its project avoided straining the grid or raising electricity costs for neighbors. But the company did not respond to Ars’ questions about the power plant backlash, making it seem clear that the discussion it’s willing to have is over the cost of utilities, not the potentially mass-polluting impacts from its center’s reliance on gas turbines. In a statement provided to Ars, Amazon said that it “believes in paying the full costs of powering our operations,” and it plans to do so by relying on “new on-site generation that won’t raise electricity costs for Texas families and is designed to transition to grid-connected service as interconnection timelines allow.” Over time, Amazon expects its power plant will possibly add energy supply for local customers, which could eventually make the grid more reliable and affordable. That’s the vision for the future that Amazon and likely other AI firms want the public to focus on. However, it’s unclear if neighbors would ever see those future benefits. And any spike in emissions once the Texas power plant comes online seems to clash with Amazon’s voluntary commitments to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, critics suggested. Amazon told Ars that it remains committed to its Climate Pledge. But under Amazon’s current plan, the Texas power plant would be permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, which the NYT flagged as “more planet-warming gases than any other power plant in the country.” Amazon knows that its data center plans could obstruct its climate goals at a time when its emissions have already been steadily rising, the NYT reported. But Amazon’s bottom line might take precedence over that 2040 deadline. For companies like Amazon, gas-burning plants offer a fast lane to avoid years of delays associated with connecting to the grid and launching data centers quickly to meet ever-rising demand, just as AI becomes more mainstream. Any delay at all is viewed as money left on the table, and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on a July 30 earnings call that demand is particularly exploding for its AI and chips businesses amid the AI boom. Looking forward, Amazon expects supply may lag behind demand well into 2027. Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokesperson, suggested that the 2040 deadline remains a priority but also noted that “the world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge,” the NYT reported. Amazon’s Pecos County plan was first exposed by Cleanview, a company closely tracking environmental concerns with off-the-grid data center developments. At the start of August, Cleanview discovered that the tech giant had filed three construction permits in Texas near the power plant that were “beginning immediately” and wondered if the projects were linked. Thoroughly documenting the paper trail and taking satellite images, Cleanview got Amazon to confirm its suspicions, then released a report Friday warning that “Amazon is backing what could be the largest natural gas power plant ever built in the United States.” Specifically, one permit showed the power plant “would use 35 turbines to generate up to 7.65 gigawatts of power,” Cleanview reported. Although it’s rare for any facility to emit as much as its permits allow, Cleanview is concerned that Amazon’s rush to fulfill Amazon Web Services cloud orders will tempt the company to blast more and more emissions into more areas each year without adequately weighing public harms. On top of the Texas power plant, Amazon is also “in talks with the developers of a 4.5 GW gas power plant in Homer City, Pennsylvania,” Cleanview reported. That Pennsylvania power plant, Cleanview noted, was supposed to be the largest in the US, but clearly that bragging right wouldn’t have stuck for long. Spiraling demand for AI is now rapidly escalating the size of the power plants, Amazon’s plans suggest. And although one survey of data center developers earlier this year suggested that the majority think the “ideal energy mix” should predominantly rely on renewables and battery storage that are only complemented by natural gas, nuclear power, and other low-carbon sources, Donald Trump has predictably panned renewable energy while insisting that “rapidly building more fossil-fuel-burning power plants was essential to America’s AI race with China,” the NYT reported. At least one electric company, El Paso Electric, suggests Trump is right at least in the short-term, telling the NYT that “renewable generation alone cannot provide the continuous power required at this time” by the biggest data centers. Stoking additional backlash, the president also recently rolled back environmental protections to make it even easier for AI firms to build their own power plants at a time when his Environmental Protection Agency head, Lee Zeldin, has declined to set nationwide standards, Politico reported. Amazon told Ars that it’s exploring the use of solar energy and battery storage at the Texas data center but plans to rely on gas turbines in the meantime. In a recent report, Cleanview flagged 59 data centers “with a combined capacity of ~90 GW that plan to build their own power ‘behind-the-meter.’” That represents about 25 percent of all planned data center projects in the US and suggests that xAI’s Colossus strategy “has gone from niche to mainstream,” Cleanview said. “Speed to power is all that developers care about,” Cleanview reported, since “bringing a data center online even a few years early could result in tens of billions in revenue that would otherwise be forgone.” The communities most likely to be impacted by the rush to build off-the-grid data centers tend to be located near “major natural gas production regions,” in typically red states where regulatory frameworks “favor rapid development,” Cleanview reported. Currently, Texas is attracting the most projects, trailed by a large margin by Utah, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Florida. On top of using “mobile gas generators strapped to semitrucks”—as xAI did in Memphis—firms are also scouring for other quick-fix solutions. Popular alternatives include “aeroderivative turbines originally designed for aircraft and warships,” “reciprocating engines that ramp fast, but are less efficient,” and “refurbished turbines acquired from industrial operations,” Cleanview found. Perhaps most problematic are some gas turbines with simpler designs, the NYT reported, which pollute more than standard turbines. For communities monitoring off-the-grid data centers, it can be hard to determine how big the pollution threat really is. The NAACP has argued that xAI’s reliance on gas turbines has only grown the longer the facility has operated, “growing from 18 to 27 to 33 to, now, 60 unpermitted gas turbines,” while “Memphis area communities were left to piece together the pollution threat for themselves.” So far, despite being the supposedly fast and easy solution, gas turbines aren’t widely used yet. According to Cleanview, xAI accounts for most of the 2 GW behind-the-meter generation capacity running as of mid-2026. Some of these projects can be approved in days, without any public notice, the NYT reported. One nonpartisan research group, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), recently estimated that “at least 82 gas-burning power plants are being built or have been proposed” to power US data centers—most within the last 18 months. But not every project gets a rubber stamp. Permitting delays have set back other attempts to move forward with off-the-grid data centers from OpenAI and Oracle, as well as Microsoft, Cleanview reported. And if nothing changes to end those delays by 2027, out of 13 GW in possible projects that could be online, only 5 GW of power may be added, the company forecasted. AI firms are doing their best to ensure there’s as much power as possible, avoiding delays by breaking up larger power projects into smaller phases that require less rigorous rules, the NYT reported. To stop that, the EIP is planning a lawsuit that could force US data center developers to adhere to stricter pollution rules. As Amazon’s data center plans expand, Jen Duggan, the EIP’s executive director, told the NYT that Texas remains a hotspot to watch for fast-tracked projects from the biggest tech companies. That’s troubling Texans, she said, who seem unlikely to simmer down since gas-burning plants “carry significant environmental footprints,” and “weak air pollution control permits that don’t protect public health are a systemic problem” already in that state.