On the evening of the 28th, Bloomberg disclosed that an internal calculation by the environmental organization the Sierra Club delivers a chilling conclusion: a wave of fossil fuel power plant construction surging up to supply power to AI data centers could very likely wipe out, in one go, the emissions reductions accumulated over the past 15 years.
The organization estimates that, counting all planned AI projects, annual carbon dioxide emissions will reach 2.1 billion tons by 2030, an increase of 618 million tons over 2025, a rise of about 42%. Its chief climate and energy advisor Fischer candidly admitted that if the forecast had been made a year and a half earlier, the scale and impact at that time would probably have been only one-quarter to one-half of today's.
Companies bypass the grid and generate their own power by burning gas
Facing an astonishing appetite for electricity, many developers have set their sights on natural gas: drawing power from the public grid while building their own power stations. By 2030, most of the new emissions are expected to come from power sources not directly connected to the grid and built by tech companies themselves — to avoid long queues, the giants are erecting generators within their own walls.
Fischer said emissions from this portion of "self-generated" power could exceed 460 million tons, almost equivalent to Mexico's annual emissions. BloombergNEF analyst Helen Kou added that if newly built facilities adopt natural gas on a large scale, emissions will only be higher.
Forecasts also diverge widely: the gap between the highest and lowest estimates of power generation even exceeds the combined electricity demand of California and Florida. New units connected only to the public grid push 2030 baseline emissions up 10%, about 154 million tons. Meanwhile, an analysis by Earthjustice and the Better Data Center Project puts it more bluntly: about 80% of these facilities' energy may come from natural gas. While captive power plants drive up local pollution and emissions, they also intensify opposition to data center construction in various places.