By Derek Seidman
This text was initially printed by Truthout
Information facilities are driving a surge within the building of energy technology services involving fracked fuel.
“The demand for energy and for AI is like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
These phrases have been uttered throughout an October earnings name, not by a wide-eyed tech government, however by Jeff Miller, the CEO of Halliburton, one of many world’s largest oilfield providers firms.
Like droves of different firms tied to the fracked fuel business, Halliburton is pivoting towards servicing the information middle growth with new a great deal of methane-emitting, gas-fired energy technology to feed the bogus intelligence (AI) bubble being stoked by Silicon Valley billionaires and allied company elites.
Halliburton is merely one in every of many fossil gas firms which are putting offers to energy the insatiable electrical energy wants of knowledge facilities. Extra particularly, the pure fuel business — frackers, gasfield providers, pipeline firms, energy suppliers — are positioning themselves as daring saviors able to step in and meet AI’s bottomless vitality calls for.
In doing this, fracked fuel firms are absolutely backed by the Trump administration, with its ideological dedication to fossil fuels and its cozy relationship with billionaire oil and fuel donors. For its half, Large Tech goes alongside, largely sidelining its purported commitments to renewable vitality.
As the worldwide local weather emergency intensifies, none of this bodes effectively. Regardless of being offered as a “clear” fossil gas, fracked fuel emits a great deal of methane, probably the most potent greenhouse gases, and native communities — typically rural, low-income, and predominantly Black — bear the brunt of the mixed nexus of knowledge middle behemoths and fossil gas energy technology being constructed of their backyards.
“The pure fuel business is immediately aligning with the information middle business,” Tyson Slocum, the director of Public Citizen’s Vitality Program, informed Truthout. “From a local weather perspective, and from a neighborhood environmental perspective, knowledge facilities signify a big obstacle to motion on local weather change.”
“Icing on the Cake”
Pure fuel at present offers over 40 % of the electrical energy for knowledge facilities, making gas-fired energy stations their largest energy supply, in accordance with the Worldwide Vitality Company.
The large demand for electrical energy from knowledge facilities is driving a surge within the building of energy technology infrastructure fueled by pure fuel.
One McKinsey analyst just lately famous that over 100 gigawatts (GW) of latest gas-fired initiatives are being deliberate. “To place that quantity in perspective,” he mentioned, “over the past 5 years, the U.S. added solely about 35 GW of fuel,” which means that is “nearly triple what it was.”
Utilities introduced a slew of latest gas-fired energy initiatives in 2025 — an element that helps clarify non-public fairness’s rush to accumulate utilities. Utility powering of knowledge facilities is predicted to skyrocket by 22 % this yr.
Trade leaders are swooning. “It’s been 40 or 50 years, or so, since we’ve seen demand develop the best way it’s rising and is predicted to develop,” mentioned one government of vitality big NRG.
“AI is clearly a giant half,” he added.
The core driver of the fracked fuel business over the previous decade has been the booming manufacturing of liquified pure fuel (LNG) for export, which has vastly accelerated because the Obama administration. Right now, the U.S. leads the world in pure fuel manufacturing and exports.
Whereas LNG exports are unequalled as “the demand driver and the revenue middle for the home pure fuel business,” says Slocum, knowledge facilities “present a big extra revenue cushion.”
“Information facilities are far and away the biggest variable that’s rising electrical energy demand,” he mentioned. “They’re type of the icing on the cake.”
“Assist Nourish That Urge for food”
With 3 million miles of fuel pipelines tightly networked throughout the nation, Slocum says the fracked fuel business has positioned itself because the prime provider for powering knowledge facilities.
That is seen by way of a flurry of knowledge middle offers struck by firms throughout the fracked fuel provide chain — impartial drillers, oil and fuel majors, pipeline firms, and oilfield providers firms.
EQT, a prime U.S. pure producer based mostly in Western Pennsylvania, the guts of the huge Marcellus Shale formation, struck a deal to produce two enormous knowledge middle hubs in Appalachia — the Shippingport and Homer Metropolis initiatives — with a mixed 1.5 billion cubic toes per day of fuel provides.
“Simply to place this in perspective, that’s sufficient pure fuel to energy two of New York Metropolis,” gloated EQT CEO Toby Rice, who additionally added that Homer Metropolis and Shippingport are “simply the primary steps of a number of steps in a number of initiatives.”
EQT is hardly alone. Fracking giants like EOG and Antero Sources are putting offers to place themselves to produce knowledge facilities. Comstock Sources, owned by Dallas Cowboys proprietor Jerry Jones, is partnering with utility big NextEra to “preserve the lights on at a plethora of knowledge facilities” in Texas, says Pure Gasoline Intelligence.
Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil and fuel firm, is getting within the recreation. “AI knowledge facilities require huge quantities of vitality to perform,” the corporate gushed in a February press launch.
However don’t have any concern, they promised. “Chevron is tapping into pure fuel to assist nourish that urge for food,” the oil big declared, saying a new deal to construct gas-fired energy crops for knowledge facilities.
“Unleashing American Vitality”
Whereas the large vitality calls for of synthetic intelligence are pulling the fracking business towards knowledge facilities, the Trump administration’s insurance policies are additionally taking part in a essential position.
“Nationwide coverage underneath Trump is prioritizing fossil fuels for knowledge middle growth” and “notably pure fuel,” Slocum informed Truthout.
“It’s express in Trump’s July government order on synthetic intelligence, the place he defines the factors that knowledge facilities want to fulfill to qualify for expedited approval, and it lists each vitality supply besides wind and photo voltaic,” Slocum added.
That July 2025 government order, titled “Accelerating Federal Allowing of Information Middle Infrastructure,” clearly emphasizes the position of fossil fuels in powering knowledge facilities. It defines “Lined Elements” — the “supplies, merchandise, and infrastructure which are required to construct Information Middle Initiatives” — utilizing language that foregrounds “vitality infrastructure” like “pure fuel pipelines or laterals” and “pure fuel generators” and “coal energy tools” with no point out of phrases like “wind” or “photo voltaic.”
As Slocum has written, “a knowledge middle proposed to be powered by wind and photo voltaic is not going to qualify for expedited remedy, whereas a fossil gas powered facility would,” including that fossil fuel-powered knowledge facilities might additionally qualify for direct federal subsidies.
This codification of nationwide coverage round fossil fuels because the core provider of knowledge facilities aligns with Donald Trump’s marketing campaign promise to “Drill Child Drill” and his adamantly pro-fossil gas January 2025 government order on “Unleashing American Vitality.”
Since taking workplace in January 2025, the Trump administration has gone to battle in opposition to renewable vitality, freezing permits round photo voltaic and wind initiatives and denigrating windmills.
Trump and the Fossil Gasoline CEOs
Trump’s ideological dedication to feeding knowledge facilities with fossil fuel-powered electrical energy is wedded to his cozy relationship with the fracking billionaires who helped bankroll his 2024 reelection.
Trump noticed oil and fuel barons as a key constituency throughout his 2024 reelection marketing campaign, and business billionaires like Harold Hamm and Kelcy Warren showered Trump with thousands and thousands in donations.
As Truthout has beforehand famous, Trump crammed out his cupboard with fossil gas executives and boosters, together with Chris Wright, the fracking-liquid-guzzling former CEO of Liberty Vitality, who Trump made vitality secretary.
Since then, the fossil gas business has benefited handsomely from Trump’s insurance policies of environmental deregulation and tax subsidies — and a bonanza of latest enterprise tied to knowledge facilities.
Warren is the co-founder and government chairman of pipeline big Vitality Switch and a longtime Trump ally. Vitality Switch is awash in new enterprise supplying knowledge facilities from Texas to Arizona and is partnering with AI giants like Oracle.
Hamm is the founder and former CEO of fracking big Continental Sources, and is a significant Trump donor who can also be backing Trump’s White Home ballroom. He could also be Trump’s largest fossil gas business ally.
“Collectively,” writes The New York Instances, Trump and Hamm “have remade federal coverage to profit oil and fuel firms, together with Mr. Hamm’s Continental, and delay the transition to greener alternate options like solar energy and batteries.”
The Hamm Institute for American Vitality, a analysis and coverage hub funded by Hamm, who additionally serves on its board, has supported pure fuel for powering AI and hosted an April occasion on “powering AI” that featured key Trump cupboard members main the administration’s vitality insurance policies.
Liberty Vitality — once more, previously led by Trump Vitality Secretary Chris Wright — can also be putting offers to energy knowledge facilities in Pennsylvania.
“The one factor that’ll forestall us from main in AI is the failure to construct this electrical producing capability that should occur,” Wright just lately raved to the Council on International Relations, including that he was “utilizing emergency powers to cease [the] closure of coal crops” and “expediting the allowing of constructing of latest crops.”
Large Tech’s Conformity
For its half, Large Tech has rapidly backtracked on its internet zero commitments because it embraces gas-fired energy technology for knowledge facilities.
For instance, Entergy, an influence technology behemoth that depends principally on fossil fuels, is at present developing three huge gas-fired crops to energy a $10 billion Meta knowledge middle in Louisiana.
Lower than a decade in the past, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg waxed about addressing the local weather disaster. Quick ahead to in the present day, and headlines like “Meta goes all in on fuel to energy a mega knowledge middle” are being printed, whereas Zuckerberg and Meta are being lambasted by lawmakers, vitality analysts, and group teams.
This suits a bigger sample, which Truthout has reported on, of Silicon Valley CEOs backtracking on purported local weather goals and criticism of Trump to stay the president’s good graces and revenue off his insurance policies.
“Trump calls for conformity, and Large Tech is offering that conformity by turning its again on its conventional commitments to extend and rely on renewable vitality,” mentioned Slocum.
In fact, all it will exacerbate the local weather disaster. The manufacturing, transport, and burning of pure fuel releases enormous quantities of methane, which is 86 occasions extra highly effective than carbon dioxide at trapping warmth in Earth’s environment.
Underneath Trump, knowledge facilities are additionally giving new life to dying and soiled coal crops, and plenty of knowledge facilities are backed up by super-polluting diesel mills that some concern might come for use extra incessantly.
As journalist Adam Mahoney has reported, in states like South Carolina and Texas, Black households disproportionately bear the brunt of the information middle growth and AI’s rising fossil gas emissions path, particularly with on-site energy technology.
Many communities are resisting each knowledge facilities and their soiled emissions — from Memphis, Tennessee, to Bessemer, Alabama, to Santa Teresa, Arizona.
To make sure, Large Tech companies are additionally partnering on some initiatives with renewable vitality sources to service knowledge facilities. Whereas U.S. knowledge facilities are overwhelmingly powered by fossil gas sources, the Worldwide Vitality Company notes that the proportion of photo voltaic, wind, and different renewables concerned will improve going into the 2030s and past.
However this raises one other query: Do we actually need the renewable vitality transition to be dominated by — and wasted on assembly — the profit-centered priorities of Large Tech and Wall Avenue companies and their fixation with the unproven, supposed wonders of AI?
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