Datacenters driving US clean energy growth while still threatening climate

Datacenters are driving unprecedented growth in the US clean energy industry, paradoxically boosting a sector that was sputtering before the artificial intelligence boom even as AI’s rollout creates immense environmental challenges. However, observers caution that while the centers are propelling wind, solar, and other clean energy companies, datacenters remain a climate nightmare. Utilities across the US are racing to build new fossil-fuel plants to accommodate the facilities, or are keeping ageing gas and coal plants online to meet the staggering demands of datacenters. In Michigan and other states, the centers have effectively derailed the grids’ planned transitions to renewable energy. The gas industry is powering much of the datacenter boom, including fracking firms and pipeline companies. Some gas companies are building new plants solely to serve datacenters, and the industry has the added benefit of the Trump administration’s support. However, supply chain snags, regulatory delays, energy generation shortages and other issues are holding up datacenters’ connections to the electric grid by as much as 12 years, and the delay is forcing big tech to throw huge sums of money at producing its own power through the quickest and cheapest alternatives – battery storage, solar, wind, fuel cells, and similar technology. …