Article · AI translation
IT Home reported on October 29 that, according to Bloomberg's report on the evening of October 28, an internal analysis by the Sierra Club, a U.S. environmental organization, found that a boom in fossil fuel power plant construction to supply AI data centers could wipe out the U.S. power sector's greenhouse gas emissions reductions over the past 15 years.
The Sierra Club estimates that, if planned AI projects are included, carbon dioxide emissions from the U.S. power sector will reach 2.1 billion metric tons by 2030, an increase of 618 million metric tons, or about 42%, from 2025.
Jeremy Fisher, the Sierra Club's principal adviser on climate and energy, said that if the forecast had been made a year and a half ago, researchers' estimates of the scale of construction and its impact might have been only one-quarter to one-half of the current projections.
Faced with the enormous electricity demand of AI data centers, many developers are choosing natural gas power generation, drawing electricity from the public grid while also building their own generating facilities.
By 2030, most of the additional emissions are expected to come from generating facilities that are not directly connected to the public grid. Technology companies often build their own power sources to avoid long waits for grid connections. Fisher said emissions from these facilities could exceed 460 million metric tons, roughly equivalent to Mexico's total annual emissions.
Helen Kou, an analyst at BloombergNEF, said that if new facilities use natural gas for power generation on a large scale, emissions are expected to be higher than levels so far this year.
How much emissions will rise remains difficult to determine. Forecasts for future emissions from the U.S. power sector vary widely: the difference in electricity generation underlying the highest and lowest estimates even exceeds the combined electricity demand of California and Florida.
The Sierra Club's analysis drew on public filings and other organizations' forecasts for data center construction, including the environmental organization Environmental Integrity Project's tally of the number and emissions of power plants planned for construction before 2030.
New generating units connected to the public grid alone would increase carbon dioxide emissions in the 2030 baseline scenario by 10%, equivalent to 154 million metric tons. In addition, there are power supply facilities built by data centers themselves.
Another analysis by the environmental organizations Earthjustice and Better Data Center Project shows that 80% of the energy these facilities need could come from natural gas. On-site power plants increase local air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and have also intensified opposition to data center construction across the United States.