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Jeffrey Rissman is a senior director at at Energy Innovation, where he works on technologies and policies to eliminate industrial greenhouse gas emissions. Eric Gimon is a senior fellow and consults as a technical expert, research scholar and policy adviser with Energy Innovation.
A colossal data center is rising amidst the farmlands of Richland Parish, Louisiana. It will guzzle 2.2 GW of power, about twice as much as the entire city of New Orleans on a peak summer day.
Near Cheyenne, Wyoming, an even larger data center looms on the horizon. While its first phase requires only 1.8 GW, it is ultimately designed to scale to 10 GW, as much power as all of New York City draws at its peak.
Aside from their ravenous power demand, these behemoths share one crucial trait: They will be fed by on-site power plants burning natural gas, not by the electric grid. Counterintuitively, it is data centers’ independence from the grid — coupled with their use of natural gas — that will hike energy costs for American homes and small businesses.
