Trump's rollback of air pollution rules is really bad news for communities who live near the gas plants being built to power data centers. It's especially bad news for Texans, where state regulators are fast-tracking approvals at an "alarming" pace.

Also, if you can afford it, maybe treat your loved ones to a HEPA filter. I just picked up two for $170 each.

Not coincidentally, this deregulatory push is happening at the very moment that the data center industry is accelerating its buildout of gas power plants onsite and behind the meter. At least 15 data centers have BTM gas plants under development in Texas alone.

This week's PJM capacity auction was really bad news for everyday ratepayers (another $6.3B added to their tab) but great news if you are fossil gas generator hoping to power data centers.

Energy Innovation factors in data center in its recent study and found significant increases in both coal and gas plant capacity due to data center demand and rollbacks of clean energy tax credits and air pollution regulations.

In January, experts surveyed by Heatmap said that Microsoft was one of the best hyperscalers from a climate perspective.

Bezos is really going to "extremes" to let Trump know what team he is on.

The data center industry frequently cites Berkeley Lab's October 2025 report for the proposition that data centers don't drive up retail electricity prices. The authors of that report are out with a new paper clarifying the situation. Here's how they show the relationship btw demand & "system" cost.

BNEF's forecast of where the data center-driven fossil gas buildout will take place assume that it will remain concentrated in the East. I'm not a subscriber so I can't see the reasoning but this contradicts other forecasts suggesting that Texas is poised for a boom.

@ketanjoshi.co looks at the new Google report and finds dramatic increases in electricity consumption and, because the grids are fossil-heavy, dramatic increases in GHG emissions.

It's getting hot out there.

Second, the AI boom is increasingly tied to the opaque private credit industry, which is in turn interconnected with banks, insurance companies, retail investors, and small & medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The implications of a credit crunch would be "substantial."

Two reasons for concern are particularly striking. First, US households at every income & wealth level are more exposed to stock market gyrations than ever.

Good news: SunZia, the largest onshore wind project in US history, has come online. Bad news: this is a high water mark. Thx to Trump's Big Ugly Bill, permitting blockade, tariffs (and failure to address clogged interconnection queues), the next several years look bleak.

TX is grappling with a mind-boggling 248 data center proposals & communities are struggling to get local officials to deal w the impacts. County offices lack capacity to review proposals anywhere close to this magnitude, and there's little movement to get them needed capacity & legal authority.

The US's behind-the-meter gas plants ("captive" to data centers) are now getting more investment than gas plants of any use case in every other region of the world.

IEA World Investment Report: as a result of the tech industry's AI-driven push to build new gas power plants, the US is now investing more in fossil power than China. @carbonbrief.org

RBN: EIA understates rising demand for fossil gas from 6.5GW from data center projects in OH, PA, and WV. If built, these projects would increase NE gas demand by 1,000 million cubic feet/day by 2029, dwarfing EIA's projected 230-MMcf/d increase.

Latest evidence that the Trump regime knows it's losing badly on data centers: here's Interior Sec'y Burgum on Elon's hellsite telling Breitbart that data center opposition is driven by "foreign influence campaigns."

The business model of Big Tech has shifted from one focused on free cash flow (which generates immediate $ for investors via stock buybacks) to one with heavy fixed asset investment (which requires keeping investors believing in a long term payoff). But...

@hannahritchie.bsky.social highlights how much the US differs from the rest of the world when it comes to electricity demand growth. The US is relatively slow at ramping up EVs and we're already have AC and the data center boom is heavily concentrated here.

@sierraclub.org analyzes the impact of coal-fired power on Texas water supplies & it wastes billions of gallons of water every year. Its recommendations for protecting unused water rights for beneficial uses will need to be acted on quickly before data centers gobble them up.

UT Austin researchers find that the data center boom represents a significant threat to the state's water supplies, with a projected increase from 1% to 3-9% of the state's total available water. Reliance on fossil or nuclear power increases the impact dramatically.

Microsoft is considering ditching its commitment to match its hourly electricity use with renewable energy purchases by 2030. It's in a race with the other hyperscalers to power up energy-guzzling AI data centers as fast as possible, so apparently a livable climate is no longer a priority.

Five years ago, solar, wind & batteries dominated the PJM Interconnection queue. Today, thanks to AI data centers, fossil gas is dominant. Bad news for our climate, air & water quality and pocketbooks.

Aurora Research has weeded out speculative projects and still sees 277 GW of data center capacity planned in the US over the coming years. Of this, 145 GW is from developers w no operational experience - who somehow must raise $6T to achieve sites fully loaded with needed infrastructure.

U Michigan & MIT researchers looked at 150K transcripts of local gov't meetings about data centers from 2007 to 2026. Key finding: communities chose to discuss concerns about land use, electricity, infrastructure, and utilities more than the supposed economic development benefits.

15 data center bills were considered in the 2022 state legislative sessions. This year, the number jumped to 262. Tax breaks & other incentives were once the focus, now legislators are also grappling with energy, environment, siting, and transparency issues. @latitudemedia.bsky.social

Tesla has an earnings call today and hopefully will explain what is going on with its battery business. Deployments fell 15% in Q1 2026 versus the same quarter last year. Elon's obsession with spaceships, robots and AI is hurting his EV business, could the same be true of his battery business?

FT looked at satellite imagery of other big data center projects. Its verdict: progress is much slower than the AI hype machine would suggest.