An Amazon data center could have the worst polluting power plant in the country
TL;DR
Amazon is investing in a new gas-fired power plant in Pecos County, Texas, built to supply its own data center with up to 7.65 gigawatts of electricity. The facility's 35 natural-gas turbines would initially run disconnected from the Texas grid, tying output directly to the data center's demand. The New York Times reports it could rank among the largest single sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the US.
Nauti's Take
A dedicated plant next to the data center solves a real problem, because grid bottlenecks are the main brake on AI buildout and this keeps the load off the public network. The price is 35 gas turbines that could rank among the largest single greenhouse gas sources in the country.
Anyone evaluating cloud providers or their own capacity should ask about energy mix, utilization and the term of power contracts before committing to a site.
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