New Gas-Powered Data Centers Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations

New gas projects linked to just 11 data center campuses around the US have the potential to create more greenhouse gases than the country of Morocco emitted in 2024. Emissions estimates from air permit documents examined by WIRED show that these natural gas projects—which are being built to power data centers to serve some of the US’s most powerful AI companies, including OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft, and xAI—have the potential to emit more than 129 million tons of greenhouse gases per year.

As tech companies race to secure massive power deals to build out hundreds of data centers across the country, these projects represent just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential climate cost of the AI boom.

The infrastructure on this list of large natural gas projects reviewed by WIRED is being developed to largely bypass the grid and provide power solely for data centers, a trend known as behind-the-meter power. As data center developers face long waits for connections to traditional utilities, and amid mounting public resistance to the possibility of higher energy bills, making their own power is becoming an increasingly popular option. These projects have either been announced or are under construction, with companies already submitting air permit application materials with state agencies.

Michael Thomas, the founder of clean energy research firm Cleanview, has been tracking gas permits for data centers across the country. He calls behind-the-meter power “a crazy acceleration of emissions.”

“It's almost like we thought we were on the downside of the Industrial Revolution, retiring coal and gas, and now we have a new hump where we’re going to rise,” he says. “That terrifies me in a lot of ways.”

One of the first—and most notorious—examples on this list is in Memphis, Tennessee. xAI made national headlines in 2024 after it began to set up gas turbines at its first data center campus in the city, Colossus 1, to quickly develop Grok, its AI. Community members living in the low-income Black community around the campus, concerned about air pollution, rallied to protest the turbines. (The EPA ultimately approved the use of turbines for the xAI campus last year; last month, regulators granted a permit for an xAI affiliate for the company’s second campus in Southaven, Mississippi, despite widespread community opposition. The NAACP filed suit against xAI last week, claiming the company was illegally operating the turbines.)

xAI’s gas turbines also represent what could be a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions. Air permit applications for both the Colossus campus in Memphis and the nearby Colossus 2 campus in Southaven show that the turbines on each campus could generate more than 6.4 million tons of CO2 equivalents at each site per year. Combined, that’s roughly equivalent to the emissions from more than 30 average-sized natural gas plants, or enough energy to power 1.5 million homes. (xAI did not respond to a request for comment.)

Microsoft, meanwhile, is reportedly looking into purchasing power from a Chevron-backed natural gas project in West Texas. That single project, according to its permit, could emit more than 11.5 million tons of greenhouse gases each year—more than the yearly emissions of the entire country of Jamaica.

“Microsoft takes a portfolio approach to energy, leveraging a range of solutions to meet reliability needs while continuing to invest in carbon-free electricity,” Melanie Nakagawa, the chief sustainability officer at Microsoft, told WIRED in a statement. “In certain regions, dedicated onsite energy infrastructure may be part of that portfolio, particularly where grid constraints limit the pace of deployment.”

The emissions projections for the xAI and Microsoft projects, and all the others on WIRED’s list, were pulled directly from publicly-available air permit documents in state databases as well as public air permit materials collected by both Cleanview and Oil and Gas Watch, a database maintained by the Environmental Integrity Project, an environmental enforcement nonprofit. Actual greenhouse gas emissions from power plants are usually lower than what’s on their air permits. Air permit modeling is based on the scenario of a power plant constantly running at full capacity. That’s rarely the reality for grid-connected power plants, as turbines go offline for maintenance or adjust to the ebbs and flows of customer demand.

“Permitted emission numbers represent a theoretical, conservative scenario, not the actual projected emissions,” Alex Schott, the director of communications at Williams Companies, an oil and gas company that is building out three behind-the-meter power plants in Ohio for Meta, told WIRED in an email. Internal modeling done by the company, Schott added, shows that actual emissions could be “potentially two-thirds less than what's on paper.”

The projections involved, however, are still substantial. Even if the actual emissions from these power plants end up being half of the emissions numbers on the permits, they still could create more greenhouse gas emissions than the country of Norway emitted in 2024. This number is, according to the EPA, equivalent to the emissions from more than 153 average-sized natural gas plants. (WIRED’s analysis does not include emissions from backup generators and turbines on the data center campuses themselves, which create smaller amounts of emissions.)

Energy researcher Jon Koomey estimates that while emissions from efficient grid-connected gas plants could be 40-50 percent of the permitted numbers, data center emissions could be much closer to what is modeled on the permit, given that they don’t have to respond to customer demand. This idea is reflected on a November permit application for a data center being built by AI company Crusoe, a player in three of the projects WIRED reported on. The permit application describes the facility as “unlike a traditional power plant” that has to “respond to the demands of a constantly varying grid. At the data center, the power requirements do not vary significantly.” (“We view gas as a critical bridge—not the destination—as we work to build AI infrastructure that meets the scale of demand while expanding access to innovative forms of energy over time,” Andrew Schmitt, Crusoe’s senior director of communications, told WIRED in a statement.)

Koomey points out that a global shortage of the most efficient types of gas turbines—thanks in part to the data center race—is prompting some developers to consider choosing less efficient turbine models, forcing them to run them for longer and create more emissions.

“[Data center operators’] belief is that the value being delivered by the servers is much, much more than the cost of running these inefficient power plants all the time,” Koomey says.

Gas projects developed as part of the Stargate Project, a massive, multi-company AI effort originally started to build out infrastructure for OpenAI, also represent a potential emissions bombshell on WIRED’s list. Stargate campuses are being built across multiple states, including Texas, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Permit documents for just three Stargate-affiliated natural gas projects—one to power a data center campus near the project’s headquarters in Abilene, Texas, and two to power Project Jupiter, a campus in New Mexico—show that they have a combined potential to emit more than 24 million tons of greenhouse gases each year.

"We are committed to protecting ratepayers while building the infrastructure needed for U.S. AI leadership,” OpenAI spokesperson Aaron McLear said in a statement. “Where near term natural gas is required to ensure reliable power, we work with partners to use modern, efficient generation while helping accelerate clean power and grid modernization.”

Oracle spokesperson Julia Allyn Fishel told WIRED that there is a “modification” to the Project Jupiter application currently in progress, which is expected to materially change the emissions profile.