In Texas, the online shopping and cloud giant Amazon is building a huge natural gas plant. A few months before the elections, cross-partisan popular anger is rising against the excessive consumption of energy and water by artificial intelligence.
Facing this situation that could cost Donald Trump’s Republicans the election, the solution of tech giants, like Amazon, is simple: they bypass local grids.
And it hardly matters if the new Texan gas plant will also become the United States’ largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
35 turbines for a total capacity of 7.65 gigawatts: that’s more than four times the power of France’s Flamanville EPR reactor. It is also more than any other gas-fired plant currently in operation in the United States.
GW Ranch, that is its name, will have to meet the colossal energy needs of artificial intelligence. Amazon indeed plans the installation of 3 data centers in Pecos County, Texas. And, to avoid depending on the local power grid, the American giant is building its own gas plant right next door.
The leadership of Amazon touts this approach which, according to them, guarantees that the installation of their new data centers “will not raise electricity prices for Texas households.”
Amazon also says it intends to use non-potable water for cooling its facilities in this arid area, not far from the Mexican border. But once put into service, this gas plant will be allowed to emit 30 million tonnes of greenhouse gases per year, a record in the United States. Not to mention that gas production causes methane leaks, which are 86 times more warming than CO2.
