Join for quick access. Enter your email below and we'll send confirmation plus sign you up to our newsletter.
By submitting your information, you confirm you are aged 16 or over,
have read our
Privacy Policy
and agree to the
Terms & Conditions. Geographical rules apply.
Stay On the Cutting Edge: Get the Tom's Hardware Newsletter
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
US data centers could wipe out 15 years' worth of progress in greenhouse gas emissions, report claims — buildouts could emit as much carbon dioxide as all of Mexico
Concerns have been mounting everywhere about the environmental impact of data centers, with alarms ringing at various environmental think tanks. The Sierra Club, one of the oldest environmental preservation organizations in the U.S., has now put forth an estimate that by 2030, U.S. data center buildouts will be outputting as much carbon dioxide as the entirety of Mexico, pushing back progress on greenhouse gas reduction by 15 years, Bloomberg reports.
The Club's principal advisor for climate and energy, Jeremy Fusher, puts it plainly: "the numbers continue to sort of boggle our minds." He's referring to an estimate that with the output from pending data center builds, the output from the U.S. power sector is set to put 2.1 billion metric tons of CO2 in the atmosphere by the end of the decade, an uptick of 42% compared to 2025 figures. The researchers' previous estimates were between a quarter and half of the current projections.
An increasing number of countries and states are enacting laws demanding that new data center builds have a large portion of their power generated by green sources. However, those laws rarely apply retroactively, and oftentimes have a phase-in period. Even the Irish law on the matter demanding that new data centers be fed by 80% of renewable power only requires that that happens six years after they're powered up.
In the current AI-driven market, speed of construction is king. Roughly 40% of U.S. data centers are fed by natural gas turbines, and the situation doesn't look like it'll be changing much. It'll likely get worse, as the addition of green sources almost assuredly won't keep up with demand. Much like RAM, GPUs, and storage, turbines were all slurped up by data centers. Their prices have risen by 50%, and production is backlogged for years, with one maker stating it's opening slots for production in 2032.
Having said all that, Brendan Pierpont from Energy Innovation, another climate-concerned organization, points out that although the current path looks dangerous for the environment, it's hard to make a hard prediction of how the situation will play out. He justifies his position with common data center roadblocks: the availability of turbines, delays in grid connections, and other delay factors.
Truth be told, at this point it's hard to predict how many data centers will actually reach completion, given that requests for permits far exceed available grid capacity across the U.S., and a sizable number of buildouts are encountering strong opposition. Plus, although the AI bubble is still alive and well, concerns started to arise about the economics of hyperscalers, indicating some may go the way of the dodo — and their projects along with them.
Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
Mexico only emits about 1.4% of the world's carbon dioxide.
https://www.bbvaresearch.com/en/publicaciones/mexico-emissions-and-sources-of-greenhouse-gases/
With how prolific data centers are, a 1.4% increase in worldwide carbon dioxide seems impressively low for how much power and water they use.
This isn't particularly surprising given the state of power generation in most countries. It does seem likely that all of the supply shortages will extend timelines though. Then there's the continued lack of business models to support the current rate of buildouts which could come into play as well. Realistically speaking people who live near the generators probably have more to fear than any global impact.
