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Amazon backs power plant that may become top source of US climate pollution
- AgentOrange1234 3mo agoThis is so unacceptable. Build as many data centers as you want, but fossil fuels NEED to stop yesterday.
- dev_l1x_be 3mo agoImagine that you need to explain to a type II alien that your species still burns things.
- LogicFailsMe 3mo agoImagine the type II alien nods with understanding in a human way that your species just isn't ready and it might not ever be as it erases your memory of the encounter and returns to the stars, stopping only to scan your anal sphincter because all the type II civilizations remain puzzled by it. Or maybe you'd prefer this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI
- Barrin92 3mo agoI think they'd give you some leeway if you fired up gas plants to not freeze in the winter, I want to see their faces when you tell them you turned them on because you wanted to generate more digital slop during a climate crisis
- fragmede 3mo agoWho were you able to entertain with that "digital slop", and how many father's did you disappoint with it?
- rainsford 3mo agoThe harder thing would be to explain why your species continues to get energy by burning things despite having multiple alternatives and that many people are deeply ideologically opposed to moving away from burning things. Or maybe not. Maybe this is a civilizational growing pain these aliens are familiar with. Maybe they went through the same period themselves.
- fragmede 3mo agoImagine they got here without burning anything, ever, in the history of their species.
- trhway 3mo agoOnce the Ancient Greeks had copper and iron they could potentially do wind and hydro electricity and metal-air batteries - and the civilization would probably go just fine without fossil fuels.
- thatfrenchguy 3mo agoI mean, marginally, any data center (or mall, house, but the numbers involved are smaller) you'll build in Texas is going to be a lot of tons of CO2 just from their added marginal power consumption
- tptacek 3mo agoThis is, putting it gently, not a majority opinion in the US and especially not in Texas.
- trickypr 3mo agoIn the same way “smoking causes cancer” was a minority opinion in the 50s and 60s.
- tptacek 3mo agoYou hope. People who believe things you disagree with say the same thing about their beliefs! (I think the way through this mess is huge investment in renewables, and that blue states have calamitously dropped the ball by pushing so much data center construction to red states that aren't going to incentivize that.)
- rc5150 3mo ago"People who believe things you disagree with say the same thing about their beliefs!" This statement can be applied to literally any topic and it fills me with a dread that is only matched by trying to fathom the inifinite nature of the universe and time. The notion of having good faith, well intentioned debate and discourse around any conceivable subject just feels impossible most of the time.
- tptacek 3mo agoThat was my point. People disagree about this topic. I happen to agree that climate change is a real and imminent problem (though probably not, with the previous commenter, about its solution space). Pointing to public opinion about smoking in the 1950s is a conclusory argument; it doesn't get us anywhere.
- harimau777 3mo agoThe problem is that the two sides disagreeing are not equal.
- Lerc 3mo agoIn broad strokes I tend to agree. I think there is a fairly good path to moving most things to electricity and in turn moving most electricity generation to renewables. The more nuanced view is that I would support a residual use of fossil fuels for niche applications that require the properties of the fuel in instances where no known substitute solution would do the job. By and large, renewables are marching towards a state where they will provide enough of the generation that what remains would be insignificant. I would be interested to know where the gas is coming from for this particular data centre. There are a few cases that generation by gas is preferable to what is happening right now. One good example is if the gas is from sources that would otherwise be flared off. I have heard in the past that businesses have been reluctant to harness energy from gas rather than flaring it off because any user of the energy gets tagged with the CO2 emissions. If it just gets burnt off it makes no difference to the amount of total emissions, but it avoids the CO2 being attributed to their industry.
- sandworm101 3mo agoThere is a time and place for fossil fuels. I see too many people scream for electrification in new biuldings yet do not hesitate to operate a backyard grill, or eat out at restaurants (electrifying a commercial kitchen is a massive ask).
- doctorwho42 3mo agoAh yes, 20GW of new LNG based power generation is the same as the occasional backyard grill usage, or eating out at restaurants... Very whataboutism
- paulryanrogers 3mo ago> I see too many people scream for electrification in new biuldings yet do not hesitate to operate a backyard grill, or eat out at restaurants It's not hypocrisy to want things to be better and tolerate that some things are net negative. I have a fireplace and enjoy using it. But it's bad for my kids health and neighborhood air quality. So I use it far less than my parents did theirs. I also don't commute and fly far less than my father did throughout his life. Life isn't some strict binary, all or nothing affair.
- delichon 3mo ago> fossil fuels NEED to stop yesterday At the current rate it will stop in four to ten centuries. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPXRjoqbcAATWUu?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPXRjoqbcAATWUu?format=jpg
- jahnu 3mo agoYes at the current rate but if I drew a line at the 2006 rate of solar growth would it have anything to do with the rate now? How about 2016? I’m down about our prospects for limiting the damage but let’s not be irrationally doomer about it either. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capacity https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...
- doctorwho42 3mo agoAnd that is due to external actors, aka China, not the US and it's policies. We had the ability, technology, and desire to do what China is doing now back in 2006... But instead we made a housing bubble, then we dumped every investment dollar into silicon valley startups to make apps.
- odo1242 3mo agoPhysical limitations dictate it'll stop (being worth it economically to keep extracting) by like 2080 or 2090, but we'll be in way worse shape by then. That said there has never been argument about whether we are on that trajectory, we want to be on that trajectory
- belorn 3mo agoI have long advocated that EU should be in the forefront and start sunsetting fossil fueled power generation, by setting a date when no new construction is allowed and then letting the existing fleet naturally die. It would send a strong signal to the rest of the world that we can't keep constructing new thermal power stations that continue to burn fuel whenever we have need to increase capacity and grid stability. Sadly there aren't much support to do this. The largest coalition see thermal power stations as critical to manage grid stability and voted to have natural gas defined as "green", since they view it as necessary to enable renewable energy to be built. The other major coalition do want to decrease the need for thermal power plants by increasing base load through nuclear power, but they are not openly against thermal power plants as a way to reduce costs. EU lacks any movement that are willing to pay the cost of not burning fuel in order to generate electricity. Same for basically every other place on earth right now, despite EU and most countries being in agreement that climate change is real and fossil fuels should be stopped yesterday.
- snapplebobapple 3mo agothats an excellent way to make your populace poorerand therefore more willing to degrade the en>ironment for a better quality life
- spacephysics 3mo agoThis is a national security nightmare. For better or worse, fossil fuels have massive energy densities, which makes economics in defense context (and others) extremely favorable. Even with today’s energy polices, electricity costs have skyrocketed (this was the case before the data center demand). Couple that with electrification of vehicles, phase out of natural gas/oil heaters, I think its reckless abandon to push policies which harm middle and lower class families. Not to say some of these countries even consider nuclear energy “evil”. Absolutely ridiculous.
- nixon_why69 3mo agoIn the EU's case, dependence on Russian gas is already a national security nightmare.
- perpetuallunch 3mo agoWhy? Because you said so? So China and India can use all the fossil fuels they want, and other counties too not just them. But the West has to kowtow to Net Zero / ”Renewables” nonsense? We’re not buying it anymore. Everything has tradeoffs. Destroying the economy and letting low income and poor people freeze in the dark or melt in the sun is passé.
- VohuMana 3mo agoBut doesn’t China have the largest rollout of solar in the world?
- Lerc 3mo agoI believe so, They have also increased their coal consumption. The #1 increase in world electricity demand is people rising out of poverty. China has been producing the most solar in the world and still hasn't been able to cover their own demand increase with it. Eventually that form of growth will slow down. Sustainability should always look at the second derivative.
- jahnu 3mo agoIt’s worth pointing out that already last year while China’s coal power capacity grew their actual power production from coal fell. Also need to reduce use of coal in steel production too, yet.
- dburkland 3mo agoMaybe we should be looking inward as to why solar isn't more easily deployable in the US. Local zoning, permitting, and community opposition are some of the top road blocks there...
- perpetuallunch 3mo agoSolar needs to address its dispatchability problem before it becomes viable as anything other than a vanity project. Australia is experiencing this problem now to a limited extent, and is walking in to a disaster scenario with the scheduled shutdown of 5 gigawatts of coal fired electricity generating across three sites over the next three years with nothing in the pipeline to replace that 5GW.
- matt4711 3mo agoI remember a couple of years ago Amazon added a new leadership principle: Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them. these actions are exactly the opposite of what they claim to try to strive towards.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- dev_l1x_be 3mo agoI wish there was a source of energy that has 100-1000x energy density compare to other sources and it is controllable so capacity factory is close to 100. Ohh wait.
- dukeyukey 3mo agoUnless you're French.
- philipkglass 3mo agoAmazon is also investing in nuclear power for data centers: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/amazon-updates-smr-progress-with-new-images-of-proposed-plant https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/amazon-updates-s... However, building new nuclear reactors is a slow process. These reactors aren't expected to be built before the 2030s. China is currently the fastest at bringing new reactors online. Even there it takes 6-7 years from construction start to commercial power generation, e.g. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/chinese-reactors-start-up-milestones https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/chinese-reactors...
- dev_l1x_be 3mo agoYeah they are betting on everything at this stage.
- SV_BubbleTime 3mo agoSorry, best I can do are a bunch of activist hippies.
- exabrial 3mo ago[flagged]
- SV_BubbleTime 3mo agoHang tight because after them, the guys that paid top dollar for their EVs and need to tell you how not it’s not anxiety; but that they really enjoy watching and mentally considering the charge and rate of depletion everywhere they go all the time.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- brandonagr2 3mo agoIt seems strange for this article to word this as a new or unusual source of pollution, natural gas is the primary source of energy in the US, adding 10% to existing thermal fleet in ERCOT https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards https://www.ercot.com/gridmktinfo/dashboards is not a huge deal and its disingenuous to say this one plant will become a "top source of US pollution". Solar generation buildout in ERCOT is also proceeding very quickly, the new Tesla megapack factory outside Houston and proposed new solar factory will help speed up the transition to sustainable energy.
- tptacek 3mo agoIt's also, as the article points out later, a permitted cap, not an emissions estimate. New plants generally have permitted caps far higher than their expected emissions.
- jbellis 3mo agoI'm so old I can remember when ars technica published actual technical content.
- tzs 3mo agoThe article says "could become the largest single source of climate pollution in the United States".
- ChrisArchitect 3mo ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220350
- cloudie78 3mo agoIf only we had the technology and ability to produce enormous quantities of energy non-stop 24/7 365, no matter day or night wind or no wind.
- throwitaway222 3mo agoBUT NUKES! All jokes aside, yes, we should invest massively in nuclear.
- shafyy 3mo agoNo we shouldn't. Nuclear waste is not and will never be solved. Nuclear meltdowns are real. Also, nuclear is more expensive than wind and solar.
- bcrl 3mo agoDeaths per terawatt-hour of nuclear is still lower than any fossil fuel per https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-production-per-twh https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rates-from-energy-p...
- fragmede 3mo agoWe absolutely will solve it. That's called fusion.
- hocuspocus 3mo agoYou don't even need that. Fast breeder reactors are enough.
- teravor 3mo agowhile at it you might as well argue for highly enriched fuel for compact SMRs. the politics of the threat of proliferation kills it in the crib.
- johannesrexx 3mo ago[flagged]
- shmoe 3mo agoImagine saying this with a serious face...
- ASalazarMX 3mo ago> {THING_I_WISH_DID_NOT_EXIST} Judas H. Priest there is no such thing. Forget newspeak, get out of your bubble and find actual facts from contrasting sources, make your own informed conclusion. Fact finding is not a dirty word. I mean, two words.
- Lerc 3mo agoI am all for fact finding, but it does require being clear about what you are specifically talking about. I have no idea what "climate pollution" is supposed to mean, is it exclusively CO2? is it CO2 and methane? Does it cover water contamination? Does that water contamination include temperature as a factor? Is water redirection counted? Is particulate matter released into the air included. Is it more or less important than particulate matter released into water. What about the make-up of the particulates? And if you do accept any set of those things, When they talk about the top one , there is an assumption that there is a known way to rank all of those things. Show me that before you make a claim that one outranks another, otherwise we are talking about an imaginary scale.
- Lerc 3mo agoIt's possibly worth noting that the source for this is an application for a permit >GW Ranch received a permit from the state of Texas allowing the gas power plant to emit 33 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If the project emitted that much CO2, it would be the largest single source of pollution in the United States Immediately following that is the text "It’s worth noting that companies rarely emit as much as their permits allow" It's also worth noting that the headline turns "largest single source" of CO2 to "top source" of climate pollution. They say pollution in the text, but context would suggest they are talking about CO2. To say otherwise would be a much stronger claim which I don't think you can assume unless they clearly assert it. I'm not sure if it is possible to quantify scale of climate impact between different types of pollution, but it seems like a stretch to unilaterally declare that the single top producer of CO2 is the top environmental impact. It may be, but they are making claims beyond what were made in their sources. I was under the impression that there were a few chemicals that had an outsize effect on climate pollution.
- nielsbot 3mo agoYou're right--it's probably fine. Why focus on this one source of pollution when there are others?
- Lerc 3mo agoBecause without enough information to truly place it in context, you may be focusing on something that may not have a notable impact on the overall problem. For starters, why focus on the plant being built when it has been permitted. If you focused on the permitting process presumably you could prevent many instances simultaneously.
- bix6 3mo agoHow would focusing on one of the largest new CO2 emitters not have a notable impact? It probably shouldn’t have been permitted in the first place so I’m with you let’s block it there next time. But in the meantime… we should just let it get built? Edit: https://cleanview.co/reports/behind-the-meter-data-centers https://cleanview.co/reports/behind-the-meter-data-centers Texas is just ripping through these things since it’s so permissive. That’s troubling for the other states who will all inevitably bear some burden.
- cynicalsecurity 3mo ago[flagged]
- Waterluvian 3mo agoPer capita the U.S. is a larger emitter than China. (Canada is even larger than the U.S.!) Let me know if you need help understanding what this means or why this matters.
- qwerpy 3mo agoApparently I need help understanding why this matters more than simply prioritizing countries who emit the most. Do you want to reduce total emissions or do you want reduce it equitably across countries? The greenhouse effect doesn’t care how equitable the reductions are.
- Waterluvian 3mo agoI think the best way to understand the problem is to imagine China taking your concerns seriously and satisfying them by drawing a line down the middle and declaring themselves to now be two countries. They’re both so far down the list now!
- qwerpy 3mo agoThat’s an interesting hypothetical. In the same vein of “assume the cow is spherical”, I also have a degenerate example! Suppose the Vatican City has horrific per capita emissions. Maybe the pope has a gastrointestinal disorder involving frequent methane emissions. The pope is otherwise healthy and will remain in office for decades. China and India point at them “but per capita emissions!” and refuse to do anything.
- Waterluvian 3mo agoHahaha. Sounds like a good case for normalization. If I were the Pope still, I’d say, “okay! Let’s both reduce our emissions by the same amount per capita!” Though it’s so much more complex than that so maybe we form an intergovernmental panel to try to sort this out.
- sfdlkj3jk342a 3mo agoWhy do we put so much focus on CO2 emissions? Sure, climate change is bad and has the potential to disrupt and end the lives of many in the future. But other forms of air pollution like pm2.5 particulates in the air are already causing an estimated 5 million premature deaths per year as well as a slew of other health problems including lowering of IQ.
- kristianp 3mo agoWhy not both?
- RunSet 3mo ago> Why do we put so much focus on CO2 emissions? Any amount of focus would be "so much". I gather you believe other people pay too much attention to CO2. That the planet is warming suggests to me they do not pay enough.
- sfdlkj3jk342a 3mo ago> I gather you believe other people pay too much attention to CO2. Why would you think that? I care a great deal about the environment.. I've been working on several reforestation projects for the last 5 years. I wish there was 100x more funding for CO2 emission reduction. But it frustrates me far more how little attention pm2.5 pollution gets. I live in Asia and see the effects that pm2.5 pollution has on 100's of millions of people every day.
- RunSet 3mo agoIf you were writing to say you think people ought to pay more attention to CO2 then I misread your comment.
- platevoltage 3mo agoYou raise the temperature, polar ice melts, and then the real fun pollutants enter the atmosphere. You can't be serious.
- cdrnsf 3mo agoAll to power the generation of text nobody wants to read, images nobody wants to see and video nobody wants to watch.
- thelastgallon 3mo agoenshittification accelerators
- roughly 3mo agoBut just think, when the climate collapses and we can’t go outside anymore for large portions of the year, we’re gonna be Really happy we’ve got all this AI slop to keep us entertained!
- nba456_ 3mo agoThe consequences of environmentalists killing nuclear.
- teravor 3mo agothere is actually more nuclear pollution thanks to their efforts. when you burn coal you liberate radioactives trapped in it.
- anonymousiam 3mo ago[flagged]
- ETH_start 3mo ago"They produce harmful pollutants, which can accelerate climate change impacts and harm public health—contributing to conditions like asthma, heart disease, lung cancer, and strokes." Per kWh, natural gas plants emit half as much CO2 as coal plants and almost zero sulfur and particulate pollution. They emit little nitrous oxide and almost zero mercury/heavy-metals.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3mo ago1786171869 | Amazon behind private gas plant for new data centers | https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/amazon-behind-massive-private-gas-210211828.html https://finance.yahoo.com/energy/articles/amazon-behind-mass... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49219445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49219445 1786183626 | New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S. | https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/climate/amazon-data-center-texas-pollution.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/climate/amazon-data-cente... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220350 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220350 1786210072 | Amazon Is Creating the Biggest Pollution Source in the Country | https://newrepublic.com/post/214111/amazon-data-center-biggest-pollution-source-entire-country https://newrepublic.com/post/214111/amazon-data-center-bigge... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49223845 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49223845 1786350058 | Amazon plans gigantic gas power plant for new AI data center | https://www.heise.de/en/news/Amazon-plans-gigantic-gas-power-plant-for-new-AI-data-center-11404051.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/Amazon-plans-gigantic-gas-power... | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49240853
- heyaco 3mo agowho cares, poor people ought to die