ITHome October 30 news: A latest analysis by the Sierra Club shows that building large amounts of new fossil fuel infrastructure to meet data center electricity demand could cause carbon dioxide emissions from the US power sector in 2030 to rise 42% compared with 2025, and these greenhouse gases will exacerbate global warming. This would essentially wipe out 15 years of greenhouse gas emission reduction achievements.
If all planned AI computing power projects in the US are fully realized, by the end of 2030 carbon dioxide emissions from power generation would increase by 618 million tons, roughly equivalent to the carbon emissions generated by the annual electricity use of 128,788,523 households.
ITHome notes that the Sierra Club's projection is higher than some earlier estimates by other institutions. Another study released by academic researchers in June this year estimated: compared with a baseline scenario without new data centers, the growth in electricity use brought by US data centers and crypto mines could raise power sector carbon emissions by as much as 28%. The final outcome depends on how many planned data center projects are actually built, as well as the type of energy used for the accompanying power supply.
US net greenhouse gas emissions have already fallen from a peak of about 6.58 billion tons in 2007 to 5.35 billion tons in 2025. But driven by data centers pushing up electricity demand, emissions began to rebound last year. The Trump administration, on the one hand, encourages the construction of fossil fuel facilities to support data centers, and on the other hand relaxes pollution controls and delays the advancement of renewable energy projects.
Another report this month by the Environmental Defense Fund notes that the scale of new fossil fuel power generation capacity currently planned in the US has reached its highest level in nearly a decade.