Eleven data center campuses across the US have gas projects attached to them that could together release more greenhouse gas each year than Morocco did in 2024. Wired, working from air permit documents, put the potential total at more than 129 million tons a year.
The projects are meant to supply power to data centers serving some of the biggest AI companies, among them OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and xAI. Most are designed largely to bypass the grid, an approach known as behind-the-meter power. Developers face long waits for utility connections and growing public resistance to higher energy bills, so building their own supply has become a popular option. All of the projects have been announced or are under construction, and the companies have already filed air permit materials with state agencies.
Michael Thomas, founder of the clean energy research firm Cleanview, has been tracking gas permits for data centers. He calls the trend “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 said. “That terrifies me in a lot of ways.”
What the permits say
The figures come from public permit filings in state databases and from materials gathered by Cleanview and by Oil and Gas Watch, a database kept by the Environmental Integrity Project. Permit numbers are a ceiling. They assume a plant running flat out at all times, and real emissions are usually lower.
Alex Schott, communications director at Williams Companies, which is building three behind-the-meter plants in Ohio for Meta, made that point. “Permitted emission numbers represent a theoretical, conservative scenario, not the actual projected emissions,” he wrote. The company’s own modeling, he added, shows actual emissions could be “potentially two-thirds less than what’s on paper.”
Wired noted that even half the permitted level would still exceed what Norway emitted in 2024. Energy researcher Jon Koomey estimates efficient grid-connected gas plants run at 40 to 50 percent of their permitted numbers, but he expects data centers to come much closer to the full figure because they do not have to follow shifting customer demand. A November permit application from Crusoe describes its facility as “unlike a traditional power plant”. Koomey also points to a global shortage of the most efficient turbines, which may push some developers toward less efficient models that run longer. “[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,” he said.
Individual projects
In Memphis, xAI began setting up gas turbines at its first campus, Colossus 1, in 2024. Residents of the low-income Black community nearby protested over air pollution. Permit applications for Colossus in Memphis and Colossus 2 in Southaven, Mississippi, each show turbines that could produce more than 6.4 million tons of CO2 equivalents a year at each site. Regulators granted a permit for the Southaven campus last month despite community opposition, and the NAACP sued xAI last week, alleging the company was operating the turbines illegally. xAI did not respond to a request for comment.
Microsoft is reportedly looking at power from a Chevron-backed project in West Texas that, by its permit, could emit more than 11.5 million tons a year, above Jamaica’s annual total. Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft’s chief sustainability officer, said the company takes “a portfolio approach to energy” and continues to invest in carbon-free electricity.
Three Stargate-affiliated projects, one near Abilene, Texas, and two for Project Jupiter in New Mexico, could emit more than 24 million tons a year combined. A fourth plant on the Abilene campus, built by Crusoe for Microsoft, is permitted for more than 7.8 million tons. Oracle’s Julia Allyn Fishel said a modification to the Project Jupiter application is in progress and is “expected to materially lower emissions”; the new estimates have not been made public.
Larger still is the Fermi campus outside Amarillo, Texas, a data center with a 17 gigawatt target. Its two gas projects could emit more than 40.3 million tons a year, more than all the power sources in Connecticut. Near Fort Stockton, Pacifico Energy is developing a 7.2 gigawatt campus whose gas project is permitted for more than 33 million tons.
Meta is tied to three Ohio projects with a combined maximum of 5.5 million tons, and to a plant in Richland Parish, Louisiana, that could emit nearly 5.2 million tons. Its 2025 sustainability report claims a reduction of 23.8 million metric tons since 2021. Even if the Ohio plants emit only half their permitted amount, that would equal more than 10 percent of that reduction.
