Ranked: How Dirty Are the Eight Biggest Names in AI
Oracle’s $165 Billion Data Center Plan Hits a Gas Pipeline Delay Sodium-ion batteries are gaining momentum… Haley Zaremba is an energy journalist and researcher with more than a decade of professional experience covering global energy systems, land and natural resources, and… Big Tech companies are quietly moving farther and farther away from their decarbonization goals.
Back in 2019, Amazon pledged to become carbon neutral by 2040, thereby setting a goalpost ten years ahead of the Paris climate agreement in a show of dedication to becoming a leader in decarbonization.
The next year, in 2020, Google and Microsoft upped the ante when each pledged to become carbon-free by 2030.
Now, just six years later, those companies are heading in the opposite direction, seeing their emissions balloon by double-digit increments thanks to hyperscaling of energy-hungry data centers to power their artificial intelligence ambitions.
To fuel their ballooning energy needs, Big Tech firms are investing in the rapid expansion and advancement ofall kinds of energy production capacity and supportive infrastructure, some clean and some very, very dirty.
Amazon is currently building a gas-fired power plant in Texas that is set to become the single-biggest source of power-related emissions in the entire United States.
“The new gas-burning plant, if built to specifications, would be permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, regulatory records show, more planet-warming gases than any other power plant in the country,” the New York Times wrote earlier this week in abombshell report.
At the same time, the company is still pledging allegiance to the decarbonization imperative.
“The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge,” Margaret Callahan, an Amazon spokeswoman, told the Times.
However, “our commitment hasn't changed,” she went on to say.
But while Amazon has dominated headlines this week as reporters name and shame the company's misaligned public front and private dealings, it is far from the biggest emitter in the AI arms race.
In fact, among the eight Big Tech frontrunners tracked by Climate Power'sData Center Air Pollution Tracker, Amazon is the cleanest of all, scoring 68 out of a possible 100 points (with 100 representing all clean energy).
| Product | Price | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Brent Crude | $102.14/bbl | +0.34% |
| WTI Crude | $96.90/bbl | +0.21% |
| EN590 Diesel | $846/MT | +0.18% |
| Jet Fuel A-1 | $1090/MT | +0.55% |
| Mazut M100 | $450/MT | -0.15% |
| Bitumen 60/70 | $470/MT | +0.08% |
| Sulphur Gran 99.5% | $470/MT | -0.44% |
| Urea 46% Gran | $650/MT | +1.12% |
| NPK 16-16-16 | $460/MT | -0.28% |
| Nat Gas TTF | $15.42/MMBtu | +0.92% |
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