OMG new gas powered electrict plants next to data centers

Give me a fricken break. Who cares! An extra 10% in return for having the technology that will usher in a revolution in productivity (like the computer or internet revolutions). Plus these new natural gas power stations will add to the grid and could actually reduce electricity costs overall.

I pulled down the relevant data on Claude. As you can see, China dwarfs any emissions we produce with India in line to eclipse us in the near future as well.

BloombergNEF warned data center gas plants could raise U.S. power emissions 10%

The report counts 181GW of announced gas-fired generation proposed alongside data centers, more than 90% of it in the U.S.

By Cris Tolomia, Quartz Media

Updated November 11, 2026

BloombergNEF warned in a new report released Wednesday that on-site gas plants proposed for U.S. data centers could add emissions equal to 10% of 2025 U.S. power-sector emissions if all of them were built. Bloomberg Philanthropies commissioned the report.

Under BNEF's assumptions, every on-site gas plant announced for U.S. data centers would get built and run, and together they would release roughly 345 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year. That is 152 million metric tons higher than the level the same amount of data center capacity would produce if it ran on the typical U.S. grid mix.

Developers have put forward plans for 181 gigawatts of gas-fired generation to accompany data centers, BNEF said, with more than 90% of that capacity located in the U.S. The pipeline includes projects at very different stages and on different schedules, and BNEF said it signals how large the buildout could get, not a prediction of the projects that will end up completed.

Many of the projects are meant to supply power while data centers wait for grid connections, BNEF said. After they come online, the economics may favor keeping them running, which creates a longer-term risk of locking in fossil fuels.

"The climate outcome will depend not only on how much electricity these facilities use, but on how quickly grids can connect them and whether power systems add cleaner generation alongside that demand," Mark Daly, head of data centers and emerging tech at BloombergNEF, said in a statement.

BNEF expects data center electricity demand to reach 2,354 terawatt-hours by 2035, equal to 7% of global electricity consumption. In the U.S. and Europe, grid-connected data centers are the more sustainable option, and faster connections would limit near-term emissions and lock-in risk, BNEF said. In emerging markets where power systems depend heavily on coal, grid-connected data centers can be worse than those powered by on-site gas.

"The grid performs well on reliability and cost and sustainability, but it has a major weakness: It fails on speed, and that's the one thing we care about today," Musfika Mishi, a BloombergNEF associate covering data centers and emerging technologies, said at the BNEF Summit in Houston, according to Bloomberg.

Grid operators are exploring options for shortening interconnection waits, Mishi said, according to Bloomberg, such as handling applications more quickly and making flexible transmission service legal. With flexible arrangements, data centers could move computing workloads to off-peak hours or pull less grid electricity by relying on backup generation. Mishi said that approach results in lower emissions than operating on-site gas all year, even if the backup runs on diesel.

Other companies have moved toward gas for their data centers. SpaceX is proposing a natural gas power station and supercomputing site in Starbase, Texas, with an estimated $24 billion in initial capital investment. The Starbase City Commission will consider a tax abatement agreement for the project on Dec. 9.

Oracle $ORCL -2.58% has been delivering compressed natural gas by truck to several AI data centers while it waits for pipeline connections.