A massive expansion of data centres powered by fracked gas could account for 10% of the economy-wide emissions and 44% of the power sector emissions allowable under the previous 2035 climate target in the US.

That’s the finding of ‘Data Crunch’, a report from the Center for Biological Diversity. Data centres are projected to account for more than 12% of US electricity consumption by 2030.

To meet the nationally determined contribution (NDC) – set by President Biden – all other electricity-consuming sectors would need to increase their emissions cuts by 60% to compensate for the impact of data centre expansion, the report said. The NDC had set a US economy-wide target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by 61-66% below 2005 levels in 2035, among other components. President Trump has withdrawn the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change, although his order does not specifically address the Biden administration’s NDC.

It said that if the projected AI surge was instead powered fully by renewables, it would account for only 4% of power sector emissions and a negligible amount of the economy-wide emissions allowable under the 2035 climate target.

“Feeding data centres with fossil fuels is taking the climate crisis we have now and blowing it up like the Incredible Hulk,” said Dr John Fleming, a scientist at the Center’s Climate Law Institute and co-author of the report.

“A gas-fed AI boom is going to hurdle us past any chance of keeping to our climate goal or maintaining a safe and healthy future for our planet. To the extent that data centre buildout is needed at all, it should be powered only by clean, renewable energy.”

The report finds that guardrails are needed at global and national levels to curb data centres’ emissions, including adoption of a public-interest framework on permitting decisions and requiring on-site and distributed renewable energy and storage for power generation at a domestic level.

The report urges the UNFCCC to incorporate AI emissions into NDC reporting and consider other mechanisms for curtailing its climate impacts.

View the report.

For more data centre news, visit Data Centre Demand.