Texas Data Center Boom Could Bring Air Pollution Back to 2000s Levels
A report from the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) warns that planned data centers in Texas could wipe out decades of air quality gains within five years. The outcome depends on whether they run on gas turbines or renewable power.
New data centers could push air pollution in Texas, the US state that has become the main hub for the physical infrastructure behind generative AI, back to levels last seen in the 2000s. That is the finding of a new report from the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC). New and proposed facilities need enormous amounts of electricity, and how much pollution results will depend on whether developers and utilities meet that demand with gas turbines or renewable energy.
What the report projects
If every planned data center in Texas connected to the grid and was supplied by the expected grid mix, soot and smog-forming pollutants would rise sharply. Within five years, that would be enough to erase decades of improvement in air quality.
In that scenario, fine particle pollution, or soot, from the power sector would more than triple, reaching its highest level since 2006. Emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), which form smog, would grow 136 percent, approaching 2004 levels. Carbon dioxide emissions would be 90 percent higher than in 2025.
The outcome is not fixed
HARC modeled several outcomes based on three projections of data center power demand. Many proposed projects are speculative and may never be built. Developers can also reduce the impact by building solar and wind farms on site: NOx emissions could be up to 10 times lower when grid power is paired with onsite renewable generation. But if developers install gas engines on site to avoid long waits for a grid connection, the opposite could happen, producing the highest pollution levels possible.
Texas leads the data center market with 26 gigawatts of existing and under-construction capacity. A separate Wood Mackenzie report published in March says the state faces four times more proposed data center capacity powered by onsite generation than any other state. In many cases developers are choosing less efficient gas turbines to speed up construction.
HARC CEO John Hall said in a press release that there is a good chance today's children and grandchildren will breathe dirtier air than previous generations. He noted that the transportation sector, the state and other stakeholders have worked for decades to bring emissions down, and that this progress is now at risk.
