Air Contaminant Proposed Allowable Emission Rates (tpy) PM 738.97 PM10 738.96 PM2.5 738.96 VOC 329.34 NOX 1,086.58 CO 830.13 SO2 244.86 H2SO4 299.00 NH3 820.71 Formaldehyde 25.25 HAPs 144.43 CO2 13,871,124.49 CH4 394.22 N2O 26.11 SF6 0.05 CO2e 13,890,275.01

estimates of emissions

Another day, another massive #Petrotech fossil-fuelled data centre.

The "Kilby power plant", 2.7 GW of fossil gas, will be pumping out 14 megatonnes of CO2-e a year (about 4.3 million combustion cars worth).

Britain’s first proposed “nationally significant” data centre would be powered by gas, putting the government’s ambition to create an AI superpower on a collision course with its net-zero goals. The £2 billion Wapseys Wood data centre in Buckinghamshire would include a new gas-fired power station to provide “a resilient and reliable power supply” for the site, planning documents show. The development would consist of up to three “hyperscale” data centre buildings drawing up to 100 megawatts of power each, and an on-site gas turbine energy generation centre with a generating capacity of between 270 megawatts and 350 megawatts.

A new fossil fuelled power station being built for yet another #Petrotech data centre - this one is the first "nationally significant" data centre project in the UK, meaning it gets planning priority. Between 270 and 250 megawatts of fossil gas.

www.thetimes.com/business/com...

Another day, another #Petrotech data centre project - this time, it's a Google fossil gas power station that'll pump out 4 million tonnes of CO2-e annually.

cleanview.co/content/goog...

Not just another massive fossil fuelled data centre, but includes a coal plant being stretched out to help make way for it. So cool.

#petrotech

Another day, another #Petrotech data centre. This one would raise Ohio's power sector emissions by 30%

Chart by Michael Thomas of Cleanview

www.linkedin.com/posts/michae...

Risky business If the plant does ultimately come online, it would emit massive amounts of planet-warming greenhouse gases, along with other health-harming pollution. Direct carbon dioxide emissions from the plant could range from 16.2 million metric tons per year to more than 20 million metric tons, according to separate estimates from the Rhodium Group and Energy Innovation, two policy and economic analysis organizations. That is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions of 4 million cars, based on federal data. Fugitive methane emissions — the pollution that leaks during the production and transport of natural gas — could add about 26 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per year, Eric Gimon, a senior fellow at Energy Innovation, said via email. Nitrogen oxide emissions could total between 300 and 2,000 tons per year, Gimon estimated. Exposure can irritate the lungs, eyes, nose, and throat, and cause a variety of health problems. In contrast, renewables and storage emit zero pollution during the operation phase of their life cycles. And they can get on the grid much more quickly, Wamsted noted.

emissions estimates

Another day, another #petrotech fossil-fuel project designated for data centres. A 9.2 gigawatt gas plant pumping out 20 million tonnes of pollution (about what our entire species emits in half an hour)

Even if 10% of this got built it'd be massively polluting

www.canarymedia.com/articles/fos...

It’s difficult to overstate the scale of this project. 8 GW is a bit less than the entire peak power demand of New York City. That scale will come with major environmental impacts. Microsoft’s 1.35 GW deployment could result in 3.9 million tons of CO2 emissions per year by my estimate1. Last year, the company’s entire fleet of data centers emitted about 10 million tons. So this deployment would boost emissions by 40%.2 If the project scales to 8 GW, it could emit 23 million tons per year. That would represent about 35% of the entire coal-heavy state’s emissions.3

a chart

Another day, another MASSIVE #Petrotech project

Microsoft's latest fossil-fuelled data centre project will increase the company's emissions by a whopping 40%

www.distilled.earth/p/microsofts...

+ my write-up on MSFT's decision to fail on climate here: ketanjoshi.co/2025/05/31/t...

View Boris Gamazaychikov’s graphic link Boris GamazaychikovBoris Gamazaychikov • 1stVerified • 1st Head of AI Sustainability @ SalesforceHead of AI Sustainability @ Salesforce 32m • Edited • 32 minutes ago • Edited • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn The gas-powered data center craze has come to Europe. Yesterday, a 110MW off-grid AI data center outside of Dublin was switched on - and it's powered entirely by fossil fuels. Developers went with natural gas engines (specifically RICE) to bypass the grid connection queue. They claim the engines "could" be switched to HVO, and that the project will attempt to connect to the grid "when possible". What does this mean for Ireland's climate goals? According to my estimates, this single project will increase the entire country's annual GHG emissions by ~1%. Assumptions: - The project seems to be using Rolls Royce (mtu) 4000 Series RICE which have an electrical efficiency of 44% https://lnkd.in/eRX4PRuf - Modifying the NREL life cycle gas emissions factor with this efficiency yields 656.75 gCO2e/kWh https://lnkd.in/gfgs2X6P - Assuming a 90% capacity factor because AI hyperscale data centers run near 24/7 to recoup massive GPU costs - Ireland’s 2024 GHG emissions = 53.8 million tCO2e https://lnkd.in/ejjRgRpE hashtag#DataCenters hashtag#Sustainability hashtag#ArtificialIntelligence

Royce (mtu) 4000 Series RICE (natural gas) Al Data Center

Ireland's new fossil-fuelled #Petrotech data center will increase Ireland's **total** (everything, not just the power sector) emissions by ~1%

Absolutely nuts. A 1% national increase - for what? Come on boosters, explain why this is worth it 🫠

www.linkedin.com/posts/bgamaz...

Not all of this will go ahead, particularly given the notable shortage in gas turbine supply. But the point isn’t for all of this to get built. These people are throwing wet noodles at the wall and hoping a few of them stick. Even a fraction of these data centre fossil plants getting built would cause a material rise in America’s economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions (as has already started to happen). But another report released yesterday suggests a good chunk of America’s planned fossil data centre capacity will actually go ahead (the report also includes the finding that OpenAI’s fossil-gas fuelled Stargate project will emit 14 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, wiping out 20 years of emissions reductions in New Mexico). It also highlights the intense desperation behind turbine sourcing: reusing aircraft jet engines and buying turbines from a cruise ship company. This is a win-win for companies, politicians and the fossil gas industry. Skyrocketing electricity bills in the US linked to data centre grid connections can be eased by bolting filthy, oversized off-grid fossil power plants onto facilities. That soothes political angst and creates a guaranteed demand sink for fossil fuels. This is “petrotech” — a brand new variety of fossil-fuelled overproduction. Data centres have been around for some time. But they’ve never been dipped into a near-religious frenzy of global hype as we’ve seen around AI. This creates a mode of data centre development insatiably hungry for energy, with zero consideration of externalities like “does this cause humanity’s life support systems to collapse?” Fossil-fuelled data centre development is the rule, not the exception, induced by the nutty cultural and political conditions in which this growth is occurring. Inevitably, it has come to Australia.

New @crikey.com.au piece- Australia's latest fossil-fuelled data centre carbon bomb would undo one year's worth of emissions cuts for the state of New South Wales if it were to go ahead at its proposed scale

This is #Petrotech at work - and it's going to get worse

www.crikey.com.au/2026/03/11/f...

^ Probably worth adding that if data centres become massive consumers of gas for a shadow fleet of #petrotech power plants - I assume that'll noticeably raise gas rates for residential as well, right?

To attract more data centres to New Zealand, we need to have an honest conversation about natural gas. Data centres currently use about 0.6% of New Zealand's electricity, but AI is driving demand for more and larger data centres. For our country, this could represent an increase of hundreds of megawatts of demand. This will increase pressure on our already stressed electricity system. Data centres need firm, reliable, affordable energy to operate around the clock - they can’t shut down when weather-generated electricity is short. For New Zealand, the absence of natural gas and reliable firming generation is a significant barrier to attracting more data centres. The latest International Gas Union’s report ‘The role of gas in powering AI-driven energy demand’ sheds light on how AI-driven data centre growth is reshaping global electricity systems — and why dispatchable generation, especially natural gas, is becoming increasingly essential. Read the full report here: https://lnkd.in/eX763Frx Natural gas doesn’t replace the long-term transition, it supports it. And if New Zealand wants to capture the economic upside of data centre investment while maintaining a resilient, low-emissions energy system, we need to be clear-eyed about the role gas plays in bridging that gap. hashtag#MoreGas hashtag#NaturalGas hashtag#PowerSystems hashtag#AI hashtag#DataCentres hashtag#GasForEnergy hashtag#Electricity hashtag#SystemReliability The Role of Gas in

The Role of Gas in Powering AI-Driven Energy Demand Report #AI Data Centres #International Gas Union #Natural Gas #Gas Posted 15 January 2026 Last updated 15 January 2026 Share Electricity demand growth is surging as data centres are becoming the new “industrial load” of the artificial intelligence (AI) economy, and their electricity consumption is projected to double to 800-1000 TWh by 2030. While renewables are expected to provide about half of the data centres’ electricity consumption by 2030, their inherent variability creates a mismatch with the flat, 24/7 load profile of data centres which requires not only more generation but, also, significantly more dispatchable capacity. This Report argues the case for long-term energy planning to remain fact-based, transparent, and grounded in realistic assumptions about electricity infrastructure and the rapid expansion of AI driven technology, while demonstrating the role of Gas in powering this ever-increasing AI-driven energy demand.

Your daily #petrotech - the NZ gas lobby just flat-out saying out loud that data centres are going to be powered by their lovely fossil fuels

Your daily #Petrotech update: yet another plan to increase fossil gas production to supply data centre energy hunger

www.reuters.com/business/ene...

In the past few weeks, there has been a torrent of news about the largely US-based explosion of behind-the-metre fossil infrastructure exclusively to fuel the anxious build-out of data centres. This is #Petrotech revolution and it's accelerating every single day.

🧐
#energysky #petrotech

Wärtsilä to supply 429MW of gas turbines to US power plant set to serve data center Volvo launches gas engine for data center market

TIL: Volvo Penta is not the same Volvo as the Volvo that make electric cars, and now they're building massive fossil gas engines for datacentres. Depressing, and another example of #petrotech - fossil fuels specifically used to power digital infrastructure

www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/w%C3...

0.94% increase in emissions inthe US if all 8 gigawatts go ahead

American Intelligence & Power has partnered with Caterpillar and Boyd CAT to deliver 2GW of dedicated onsite power for hyperscale AI data centres from 2027 American Intelligence & Power Corporation has formed a strategic alliance with Caterpillar and Boyd CAT to deliver large-scale dedicated power for hyperscale AI data centres. The agreement supports the development of the Monarch Compute Campus in West Virginia, a multi-phase power generation and infrastructure platform designed to meet the growing energy demands of AI-driven data centre workloads. Under the purchase agreement, American Intelligence & Power Corp has ordered 2GW of fast-response natural

Unstoppable stream of new announcements of fossil fuelled power stations *explicitly* powering data centres.

2 gigawatts of gas for this project in West Virginia, ~ 11 MTCO2-e annually. At full 8GW planned cap, a 1% increase in TOTAL US EMISSIONS

#Petrotech

datacentremagazine.com/news/caterpi...

If we’re gonna have #electrotech to name the straight up better future tech that you get via electrification, then it’s fair to have the term #petrotech to refer to stuff we should leave behind. Thank you Ketan!