Amazon data center. Credit: Amazon
Support CleanTechnica's work through a Substack subscription, on Patreon, or on Stripe. Help us produce all of the high-quality, original content we publish week after week despite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.
There is no way to sugarcoat this. Amazon, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, has pledged to virtually eliminate carbon emissions from its various operations by 2040. However, in the past several years its total emissions have increased rather than declined. Is this an example of Bezos talking out of both sides of his mouth? Yes, it definitely is.
In a recent statement by Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan, she blithely asserted, “The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge.” Yet she claimed “our commitment hasn’t changed.” Well, yes it has, Margaret, and in most dramatic fashion. According to the New York Times, Amazon recently committed to building an enormous new data center in Pecos County in northwest Texas. A major consideration for building it there is ready access to methane supplies.
Data centers are becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States, because people blame them for causing dramatic increases in their utility bills. But the new facility will not be connected to the local utility grid. Instead, it will rely on 35 natural gas turbines, which combined will provide 7.65 GW of power. The company proudly proclaims that the Pecos County data center will be “powered by new on-site generation that won’t raise electricity costs for Texas families.” That’s the good news.
