AI datacenter boom triples US gas power builds, filling the air with more CO2

Fossil fuel-fired power plant development is roaring back to life in the US thanks to the AI datacenter boom, with data from 2025 suggesting we're reaching the point where the renewable energy transition - and efforts to ease carbon emissions - may well be doomed. 2025 was a banner year for gas-fired power plant development in …

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you not get the memo?

Nobody cares about carbon footprints any more because they, along with all the other green initiatives, have been exposed as mechanisms to fleece the already impoverished Western middle class still further.

[bombastic bob]

Re: Did you not get the memo?

exactly. CO2 is NOT in any significant way affecting world climate, local climate, weather, etc. It is plant food, something that hillsides NOT covered with solar panels would GLADLY consume...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Did you not get the memo?

Right on! By this logic, YOU are nothing significant in any way, etc. You are worm food, something that worms would GLADLY consume... and nothing else. brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Did you not get the memo?

Hiya Bob, it"s been a while - been busy at the flat earth conference, or have you been out burning witches?

[cyberdemon]

Er, What?

This article is not about the relative merits of burning gas vs renewable energy. It is about the utter folly of burning a finite global resource on generating a pile of useless slop that has zero value for the world and only serves to clog up disk drives and distract idiots everywhere.

The point is, we have some gas left, great. But we should be using it on powering our actual critical infrastructure, NOT endless bullshit.

Imagine you are playing a board game. Something like Risk, where you are a civilisation that must share the limited resources of a world with other civilisations. Do you think it is a good idea to take your best and most reliable, but finite source of fuel, and pour it on a giant bonfire? Does that win the game?

No, if you do that, you lose.

AI datacentres should be forced to use Wind and Batteries, because at least (once built) that doesn't cost the world anything for its use. Then we can use Gas for the stuff that we DO need to work when we need it, like heating and lighting!

Oh, the wind stopped blowing. The upside is, all the Gen AI services are down. Hurrah

[Steve Button]

Re: Er, What?

Haven't you yourself just posted something which isn't "critical" and therefore have contributed to energy usage? Who gets to decide what's "endless bullshit", and what's actually needed?

[cyberdemon]

Re: Er, What?

Sure. But my brain only uses 20 watts, and that doesn't change much whether I am posting what you define as "bullshit" to the Reg forums, or if I do something else.

And the food that I eat is all solar powered, with this amazing natural energy storage system called er, life..

Apparently the average LLM uses 0.24 Wh for the median prompt. Or about 0.5Wh (1800J) of gas, if it is powered by gas. I don't know how many tokens it would take to parse this thread, its article, and any other relevant context to produce a pithy, concise response to your post, but I am quite sure it would not produce what I wanted first time.

If we are only factoring the energy taken by the AI vs the energy taken by my brain during writing, then if I can complete this post inside of 90 seconds then I have beaten the AI hands down.

But then, you forget that a human using AI still has a brain, using 20 watts of bio power while he or she types the prompt. If it takes just as long to prompt the AI as it does to write the post, then any energy use by the AI is simply wasted. Doubly so if it takes multiple attempts to get it right.

And even if the AI could autonomously replace me without prompting (which it can't), I am still here, with my brain using its 20 watts.. Or do you propose that all humans be exterminated too?

[Steve Button]

Re: Er, What?

It's the computer you are typing this on, the network infrastructure and the servers to deal with and serve the thread. Probably way more than 20W.

Also, I never actually said your post was "bullshit". That was your original quote. It's who gets to decide which is the question. What might seem important to someone or a waste to someone else. What's worthy enough? Is mere entertainment sufficient?

[cyberdemon]

Re: Er, What?

Well, the vast majority of AI outputs go straight in the bin. Vibe-coders and vibe-artists make hundreds of versions and adjust the prompt, before choosing one that they will actually use. So by that metric 99% of AI output is objectively bullshit.

The remaining 1% that actually gets used is what is up for debate. People are increasingly referring to it as 'slop', not just because of errors, but because every output is different but eerily all the same. e.g. If you ask AI to recommend a unique tourist spot that nobody goes to, one that it would never recommend to anyone else.. You will find hundreds of cars parked up on the verges, hordes of others just like you, and angry locals accusing you of spoiling the landscape.

It is fundamentally incapable of 'innovating', because it is merely a fancy average of everything that has gone before. That is why it is not 'intelligent' and certainly never will be 'superintelligent' no matter how much data and energy you throw at it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Er, What?

Shush already. Your stupid "gotcha" didn't work. Don't double down on it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Er, What?

If people were really bothered about climate change, maximum resources would be dedicated to perfecting nuclear fusion. People complain that it's expensive, but I read a statistic once that America's total fusion expenditure since the 1950s is equivalent to one month of the Iraq war.

*If* AGI/ASI ever becomes a reality then the goal of achieving fusion will be brought a lot closer. In that respect, using fossil fuels for AI research will have been well worth it.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Er, What?

Er, no.

A[G]I is not going to magically make fusion feasible. You are either an idiot or a troll.

[Goodwin Sands]

So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

It bangs on about how naughty the US is in building new oil and gas power plants but makes no mention of the mind-boggling build out of coal power plants that's been going on in China for years and is going to carry on for years. For a fuller picture here're some numbers

China approx 0 GW oil, 25 GW gas, 1190 GW coal.

US approx 0 GW oil, 570 GW gas, 200 GW coal.

[Paul Herber]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Well that's alright then. CO2 is good for you. Pollution is good for you. Oxygen's for losers!

I've heard that sprinkling asbestos on your morning cereal will lengthen your life by 300%. Drink benzene for health! Radium makes the best toothpaste. Driving your car faster is more likely to save a pedestrian's life in a collision. All new houses should be built on floodplains.

[Goodwin Sands]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

@Paul Herber

You're making things up. No one endorsed pollution. Point being made was about article's scope.

[LionelB]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Please google "irony" (or use an AI).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Daft that you read above and think it's because irony not understood. Go reread it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

CO2 is good for you.

In fact, yes it is. Without it the carbon cycle would cease to exist along with nearly all life on Earth.

[LionelB]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

That is completely vacuous, fatuous, and irrelevant to the article (and anything else I can think of).

We're talking about concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere (ever come across the expression "too much of a good thing"?)

[bombastic bob]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

CO2 is *NOT* pollution. YOU are EXHALING it right now.

It is PLANT FOOD!

[LionelB]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Have you ever tried smothering your house plants with plant food? Try it (I have… accidentally. It wasn't pretty.)

[John Robson]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

So in that case oxygen isn't toxic?

And water can't possibly harm anyone...

Just because we need *some* carbon dioxide in the atmosphere doesn't mean we need as much as we can possible get.

[LionelB]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

I'm not sure why anyone would downvote this. The "CO2 is plant food" trope is just plug-stupid – dumb beyond belief.

[DS999]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Anyone can post completely made up bullshit numbers. How about some sources, and how about including renewables in those lists? You don't do that, because it makes China look much better at the rate they are deploying renewable energy compared to the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Heavy industry cannot function with renewables. You cannot build solar panels and wind turbines with solar panels and wind turbines!

If the Chinese are deploying way more renewables than the US, that just means they're pumping hugely more CO2 into the atmosphere in doing so. Also, all of these technologies have a finite lifetime - often less than 20 years. Just imagine how much coal will be burnt updating all the existing and future "green" infrastructure? It's pure madness.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Right on! Innovation so sucks! Energetic leadership is so retrograde! The future is behind us, we must return there! Knowledge is stupidity! Pollution is our salvation! Blindness is foresight!

Please run for president! _</sarc?>

[cyberdemon]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

> Heavy industry cannot function with renewables.

I agree. You cannot power a blast furnace with renewable energy. Even an Electric Arc Furnace (which produces only low-grade steel for construction and NOT military or civil nuclear use) requires a reliable, dependable source of power. That is why China is still burning gas and coal.

But "AI" is NOT industry. It's not even innovation, as far as I'm concerned. It has negative value.

If everybody had to wait until the wind blowed before they could generate their next fake video, or get their code-assistant to fart out another non-working pile of dung, we might actually get more work done.

Meanwhile, use the gas and coal sparingly for the actual industries that need them. That is what China are trying to do. And broadly succeeding as far as I can tell.

Trying to make a country 100% renewable without nuclear is indeed a stupid idea. But wasting what little gas and even nuclear power you do have on a giant water-evaporator is even crazier.

[Charlie Clark]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Actually, I think the real argument is about the consequences in the general economy of what is a massive bet: the risks are not just to those companies investing in data centres.

I'm fairly sanguine over the building of gas power stations as they're the most flexible, but only where there is a functioining grid. Renewables – mainly wind and solar – continue to expand in America's sunbelt where they bring the best returns; and, while they're attracting customers, they simply can't provide the energy density needed for the massive new data centres. Gas is the cheapest and most flexible option that is available now and can be built quickly enough. Regardless of the type of generation however, none of it comes cheap and electricity prices in general will rise.

China – as has India – has indeed continued to build coal-fired powered stations whilst also massively increasing its renewable capacity. Over the last few years increase in supply has exceeded increase in demand, leading to oversupply. There is debate as to whether this has led to shiny new renewables just idling, but coal plants are now being closed, with renewables and nuclear responsible for most of the increased capacity – see slide 3 of this report from CREA. Many of them have been replaced by newer, more efficient ones, something that is missing from your numbers. But now some industries are relocating to the west where this is abundant, cheap and reliable renewable power. Local politics plays a big role but so does declining industrial production especially in steel and cement. This, incidentally, frees up capacity for data centres, but it does look like China is starting shift from fossil fuels to renewables and nuclear. A key part of this is the switch to EVs which will insulate drivers – I'm not a fan of batteries for cars – but this should insulate drivers from a potentially increasingly volatile oil market.

[codejunky]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

@Goodwin Sands

"For a fuller picture here're some numbers

China approx 0 GW oil, 25 GW gas, 1190 GW coal.

US approx 0 GW oil, 570 GW gas, 200 GW coal."

But that doesnt fit the narrative. Fossil fuel bad for **reasons**. US has President Trump so double plus bad.

[has been]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

Renewables:-

China approx 1,800GW adding up to 500GW per year

US approx 424GW adding not a lot under the present administration.

[codejunky]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

@has been

"Renewables:-"

I know you think you are making some sort of point here. Would you care to try and explain it? You may not be going the way I think you are with this and I dont want to assume

[has been]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

>I know you think you are making some sort of point here. Would you care to try and explain it? You may not be going the way I think you are with this and I dont want to assume

Even with similar capital costs per GW for construction, zero fuel costs are significant over 25 years or more...

[codejunky]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

@has been

"Even with similar capital costs per GW for construction, zero fuel costs are significant over 25 years or more..."

I have to admit to being more confused than before. Could you flesh this out a bit more. What are you trying to say with the above?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

So please tell us: Is this you making a stupid comment again, or is it your "obvious trolling"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So this article was sponsored by China, yes?

So that's ok then. It's fine to screw the world because someone else is doing it too.

"Whataboutism" at its finest.

I thought the era of American insecurity at perceived criticism from foreigners died 20 years ago.

This article is about installations mainly to feed AI slop.

Just look at the title of your post. You should feel ashamed!

[codejunky]

Erm

"With that in mind, it stands to reason that, even if the AI bubble bursts, a lot of oil and gas power is still going to end up making its way to the grid to offset potential losses, further hampering the transition away from fossil fuels and carbon pollution."

Can we get our idiots in charge in the UK to make the same mistake please? The AI bubble crashes and we could actually have cheap, plentiful energy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Twitter warning

Why the hell are the comments here more and more resembling Musks Twitter? (I deadnamed your company, Musk, as you seem to like that)

[cyberdemon]

Re: Twitter warning

I think maybe some people (or bots) subscribe to an RSS feed of all articles with "CO2" in the title, and just come here to troll

It was weird indeed

[Goodwin Sands]

Re: Twitter warning

Many reasons I suspect but I'll suggest maybe top reason is too many commentators do nothing more than shout down something someone else has said.

Also, increasingly frequently, rude/unpleasant comments are being made.

All in all, disappointing for an educated, high'ish IQ, IT readership. Goes some way perhaps to explain why so many politicians hold the views of the electorate in contempt.

[Anonymous Coward]

Double whammy

Hard not to love that fossil fuel burning approach to powering AI (so called) when we're halfway to the boiling point ... and will bushfired plants be 'eating' CO₂ anytime soon? (answer starts with 'n')

Smells like victory right?! ... RotM victory!