Amazon data center. Credit: Amazon
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Well, so much for climate pledges and grand goals to cut carbon emissions. It’s more important for ginormous tech companies and the tech-nerd billionaires who own them to keep up with the Joneses in the midst of the modern “AI era,” no matter the consequences. Amazon, one of the cofounders of The Climate Pledge, thinks it’s more important to build a truly unmatched polluter in order to power all the AI the company can throw together.
Amazon is reportedly building a 7.65-gigawatt (GW) gas-burning power plant in Pecos County, Texas, in order to power a gigantic data center. The power plant’s 35 gas turbines are expected to emit 33 million tons of CO2 a year. No other single source of pollution in the country would compare. (Unless Elon Musk plans to shatter the record at Tesla and SpaceX’s TERAFAB project.)
Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan’s response: “[the] world looks different now than when we co-founded The Climate Pledge.” Hmm, yeah? Is it cooling? Nope, it’s heating up. Are countries and companies rapidly retiring old fossil fuel power plants? Nope. What has changed is that there is now unfathomable, extreme demand for AI data centers — at least as long as this AI is predominantly free.
