Your AI instruments run on fracked gasoline and bulldozed Texas land

The AI period is giving fracking a second act, a shocking twist for an business that, even throughout its early 2010s increase years, was blamed by local weather advocates for poisoned water tables, man-made earthquakes, and the cussed persistence of fossil fuels.

AI firms are constructing large knowledge facilities close to main gas-production websites, usually producing their very own energy by tapping immediately into fossil fuels. It’s a development that’s been overshadowed by headlines concerning the intersection of AI and healthcare (and fixing local weather change), nevertheless it’s one that would reshape — and lift tough questions for — the communities that host these amenities.

Take the newest instance. This week, the Wall Road Journal reported that AI coding assistant startup Poolside is establishing an information middle advanced on greater than 500 acres in West Texas — about 300 miles west of Dallas — a footprint two-thirds the dimensions of Central Park. The ability will generate its personal energy by tapping pure gasoline from the Permian Basin, the nation’s most efficient oil and gasoline subject, the place hydraulic fracturing isn’t simply frequent however actually the one recreation on the town.

The challenge, dubbed Horizon, will produce two gigawatts of computing energy. That’s equal to the Hoover Dam’s whole electrical capability, besides as a substitute of harnessing the Colorado River, it’s burning fracked gasoline. Poolside is growing the power with CoreWeave, a cloud computing firm that rents out entry to Nvidia AI chips and that’s supplying entry to greater than 40,000 of them. The Journal calls it an “power Wild West,” which appears apt.

But Poolside is way from alone. Practically all the most important AI gamers are pursuing related methods. Final month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman toured his firm’s flagship Stargate knowledge middle in Abilene, Texas — round 200 miles from the Permian Basin — the place he was candid, saying, “We’re burning gasoline to run this knowledge middle.”

The advanced requires about 900 megawatts of electrical energy throughout eight buildings and features a new gas-fired energy plant utilizing generators related to those who energy warships, in accordance with the Related Press. The businesses say the plant gives solely backup energy, with most electrical energy coming from the native grid. That grid, for the report, attracts from a mixture of pure gasoline and the sprawling wind and photo voltaic farms in West Texas.

However the individuals residing close to these tasks aren’t precisely comforted. Arlene Mendler lives throughout the road from Stargate. She advised the AP she needs somebody had requested her opinion earlier than bulldozers eradicated an enormous tract of mesquite shrubland to make room for what’s being constructed atop it.

“It has fully modified the way in which we had been residing,” Mendler advised the AP. She moved to the realm 33 years in the past searching for “peace, quiet, tranquility.” Now development is the soundtrack within the background, and vivid lights on the scene have spoiled her nighttime views.

Then there’s the water. In drought-prone West Texas, locals are significantly nervous about how new knowledge facilities will influence the water provide. The town’s reservoirs had been at roughly half-capacity throughout Altman’s go to, with residents on a twice-weekly out of doors watering schedule. Oracle claims every of the eight buildings will want simply 12,000 gallons per yr after an preliminary million-gallon fill for closed-loop cooling programs. However Shaolei Ren, a College of California, Riverside professor who research AI’s environmental footprint, advised the AP that’s deceptive. These programs require extra electrical energy, which implies extra oblique water consumption on the energy crops producing that electrical energy.

Meta is pursuing an identical technique. In Richland Parish, the poorest area of Louisiana, the corporate plans to construct a $10 billion knowledge middle the dimensions of 1,700 soccer fields that may require two gigawatts of energy for computation alone. Utility firm Entergy will spend $3.2 billion to construct three giant natural-gas energy crops with 2.3 gigawatts of capability to feed the power by burning gasoline extracted by means of fracking within the close by Haynesville Shale. Louisiana residents, like these in Abilene, aren’t thrilled to be encircled by bulldozers across the clock.

(Meta can be constructing in Texas, although elsewhere within the state. This week the corporate introduced a $1.5 billion knowledge middle in El Paso, close to the New Mexico border, with one gigawatt of capability anticipated on-line in 2028. El Paso isn’t close to the Permian Basin, and Meta says the power shall be matched with 100% clear and renewable power. One level for Meta.)

Even Elon Musk’s xAI, whose Memphis facility has generated appreciable controversy this yr, has fracking connections. Memphis Gentle, Gasoline and Water – which presently sells energy to xAI however will ultimately personal the substations xAI is constructing – purchases pure gasoline on the spot market and pipes it to Memphis through two firms: Texas Gasoline Transmission Corp. and Trunkline Gasoline Firm.

Texas Gasoline Transmission is a bidirectional pipeline carrying pure gasoline from Gulf Coast provide areas and a number of other main hydraulically fractured shale formations by means of Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Trunkline Gasoline Firm, the opposite Memphis provider, additionally carries pure gasoline from fracked sources.

In the event you’re questioning why AI firms are pursuing this path, they’ll let you know it’s not nearly electrical energy; it’s additionally about beating China.

That was the argument Chris Lehane made final week. Lehane, a veteran political operative who joined OpenAI as vp of world affairs in 2024, laid out the case throughout an on-stage interview with TechCrunch.

“We consider that within the not-too-distant future, no less than within the U.S., and actually all over the world, we’re going to have to be producing within the neighborhood of a gigawatt of power per week,” Lehane mentioned. He pointed to China’s large power buildout: 450 gigawatts and 33 nuclear amenities constructed within the final yr alone.

When TechCrunch requested about Stargate’s determination to construct in economically challenged areas like Abilene, or Lordstown, Ohio, the place extra gas-powered crops are deliberate, Lehane returned to geopolitics. “If we [as a country] do that proper, you’ve a possibility to re-industrialize international locations, convey manufacturing again and likewise transition our power programs in order that we do the modernization that should happen.”

The Trump administration is definitely on board. The July 2025 government order fast-tracks gas-powered AI knowledge facilities by streamlining environmental permits, providing monetary incentives, and opening federal lands for tasks utilizing pure gasoline, coal, or nuclear energy — whereas explicitly excluding renewables from assist.

For now, most AI customers stay largely unaware of the carbon footprint behind their dazzling new toys and work instruments. They’re extra targeted on capabilities like Sora 2 – OpenAI’s hyperrealistic video-generation product that requires exponentially extra power than a easy chatbot – than on the place the electrical energy comes from.

The businesses are relying on this. They’ve positioned pure gasoline because the pragmatic, inevitable reply to AI’s exploding energy calls for. However the pace and scale of this fossil gasoline buildout deserves extra consideration than it’s getting.

If it is a bubble, it gained’t be fairly. The AI sector has develop into a round firing squad of dependencies: OpenAI wants Microsoft wants Nvidia wants Broadcom wants Oracle wants knowledge middle operators who want OpenAI. They’re all shopping for from and promoting to one another in a self-reinforcing loop. The Monetary Instances famous this week if the muse cracks, there’ll be a variety of costly infrastructure left standing round, each the digital and the gas-burning type.

OpenAI’s means alone to satisfy its obligations is “more and more a priority for the wider economic system,” the outlet wrote.

One key query that’s been largely absent from the dialog is whether or not all this new capability is even obligatory. A Duke College research discovered that utilities sometimes use solely 53% of their out there capability all year long. That implies important room to accommodate new demand with out establishing new energy crops, as MIT Know-how Evaluation reported earlier this yr.

The Duke researchers estimate that if knowledge facilities lowered electrical energy consumption by roughly half for just some hours throughout annual peak demand intervals, utilities might deal with an extra 76 gigawatts of latest load. That may successfully soak up the 65 gigawatts knowledge facilities are projected to wish by 2029.

That sort of flexibility would permit firms to launch AI knowledge facilities sooner. Extra importantly, it might present a reprieve from the frenzy to construct pure gasoline infrastructure, giving utilities time to develop cleaner alternate options.

However once more, that may imply shedding floor to an autocratic regime, per Lehane and lots of others within the business, so as a substitute, the pure gasoline constructing spree seems prone to saddle areas with extra fossil-fuel crops and go away residents with hovering electrical energy payments to finance at this time’s investments, together with lengthy after the tech firms’ contracts expire.

Meta, as an illustration, has assured it would cowl Entergy’s prices for the brand new Louisiana technology for 15 years. Poolside’s lease with CoreWeave runs for 15 years. What occurs to prospects when these contracts finish stays an open query.

Issues might ultimately change. Numerous personal cash is being funneled into small modular reactors and photo voltaic installations with the expectation that these cleaner power alternate options will develop into extra central power sources for these knowledge facilities. Fusion startups like Helion and Commonwealth Fusion Programs have equally raised substantial funding from these the entrance strains of AI, together with Nvidia and Altman.

This optimism isn’t confined to non-public funding circles. The joy has spilled over into public markets, the place a number of “non-revenue-generating” power firms which have managed to go public have actually anticipatory, market caps, primarily based on the expectation that they’ll sooner or later gasoline these knowledge facilities.

Within the meantime — which might nonetheless be many years — probably the most urgent concern is that the individuals who’ll be left holding the bag, financially and environmentally, by no means requested for any of this within the first place.

The AI period is giving fracking a second act, a shocking twist for an business that, even throughout its early 2010s increase years, was blamed by local weather advocates for poisoned water tables, man-made earthquakes, and the cussed persistence of fossil fuels.

AI firms are constructing large knowledge facilities close to main gas-production websites, usually producing their very own energy by tapping immediately into fossil fuels. It’s a development that’s been overshadowed by headlines concerning the intersection of AI and healthcare (and fixing local weather change), nevertheless it’s one that would reshape — and lift tough questions for — the communities that host these amenities.

Take the newest instance. This week, the Wall Road Journal reported that AI coding assistant startup Poolside is establishing an information middle advanced on greater than 500 acres in West Texas — about 300 miles west of Dallas — a footprint two-thirds the dimensions of Central Park. The ability will generate its personal energy by tapping pure gasoline from the Permian Basin, the nation’s most efficient oil and gasoline subject, the place hydraulic fracturing isn’t simply frequent however actually the one recreation on the town.

The challenge, dubbed Horizon, will produce two gigawatts of computing energy. That’s equal to the Hoover Dam’s whole electrical capability, besides as a substitute of harnessing the Colorado River, it’s burning fracked gasoline. Poolside is growing the power with CoreWeave, a cloud computing firm that rents out entry to Nvidia AI chips and that’s supplying entry to greater than 40,000 of them. The Journal calls it an “power Wild West,” which appears apt.

But Poolside is way from alone. Practically all the most important AI gamers are pursuing related methods. Final month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman toured his firm’s flagship Stargate knowledge middle in Abilene, Texas — round 200 miles from the Permian Basin — the place he was candid, saying, “We’re burning gasoline to run this knowledge middle.”

The advanced requires about 900 megawatts of electrical energy throughout eight buildings and features a new gas-fired energy plant utilizing generators related to those who energy warships, in accordance with the Related Press. The businesses say the plant gives solely backup energy, with most electrical energy coming from the native grid. That grid, for the report, attracts from a mixture of pure gasoline and the sprawling wind and photo voltaic farms in West Texas.

However the individuals residing close to these tasks aren’t precisely comforted. Arlene Mendler lives throughout the road from Stargate. She advised the AP she needs somebody had requested her opinion earlier than bulldozers eradicated an enormous tract of mesquite shrubland to make room for what’s being constructed atop it.

“It has fully modified the way in which we had been residing,” Mendler advised the AP. She moved to the realm 33 years in the past searching for “peace, quiet, tranquility.” Now development is the soundtrack within the background, and vivid lights on the scene have spoiled her nighttime views.

Then there’s the water. In drought-prone West Texas, locals are significantly nervous about how new knowledge facilities will influence the water provide. The town’s reservoirs had been at roughly half-capacity throughout Altman’s go to, with residents on a twice-weekly out of doors watering schedule. Oracle claims every of the eight buildings will want simply 12,000 gallons per yr after an preliminary million-gallon fill for closed-loop cooling programs. However Shaolei Ren, a College of California, Riverside professor who research AI’s environmental footprint, advised the AP that’s deceptive. These programs require extra electrical energy, which implies extra oblique water consumption on the energy crops producing that electrical energy.

Meta is pursuing an identical technique. In Richland Parish, the poorest area of Louisiana, the corporate plans to construct a $10 billion knowledge middle the dimensions of 1,700 soccer fields that may require two gigawatts of energy for computation alone. Utility firm Entergy will spend $3.2 billion to construct three giant natural-gas energy crops with 2.3 gigawatts of capability to feed the power by burning gasoline extracted by means of fracking within the close by Haynesville Shale. Louisiana residents, like these in Abilene, aren’t thrilled to be encircled by bulldozers across the clock.

(Meta can be constructing in Texas, although elsewhere within the state. This week the corporate introduced a $1.5 billion knowledge middle in El Paso, close to the New Mexico border, with one gigawatt of capability anticipated on-line in 2028. El Paso isn’t close to the Permian Basin, and Meta says the power shall be matched with 100% clear and renewable power. One level for Meta.)

Even Elon Musk’s xAI, whose Memphis facility has generated appreciable controversy this yr, has fracking connections. Memphis Gentle, Gasoline and Water – which presently sells energy to xAI however will ultimately personal the substations xAI is constructing – purchases pure gasoline on the spot market and pipes it to Memphis through two firms: Texas Gasoline Transmission Corp. and Trunkline Gasoline Firm.

Texas Gasoline Transmission is a bidirectional pipeline carrying pure gasoline from Gulf Coast provide areas and a number of other main hydraulically fractured shale formations by means of Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Trunkline Gasoline Firm, the opposite Memphis provider, additionally carries pure gasoline from fracked sources.

In the event you’re questioning why AI firms are pursuing this path, they’ll let you know it’s not nearly electrical energy; it’s additionally about beating China.

That was the argument Chris Lehane made final week. Lehane, a veteran political operative who joined OpenAI as vp of world affairs in 2024, laid out the case throughout an on-stage interview with TechCrunch.

“We consider that within the not-too-distant future, no less than within the U.S., and actually all over the world, we’re going to have to be producing within the neighborhood of a gigawatt of power per week,” Lehane mentioned. He pointed to China’s large power buildout: 450 gigawatts and 33 nuclear amenities constructed within the final yr alone.

When TechCrunch requested about Stargate’s determination to construct in economically challenged areas like Abilene, or Lordstown, Ohio, the place extra gas-powered crops are deliberate, Lehane returned to geopolitics. “If we [as a country] do that proper, you’ve a possibility to re-industrialize international locations, convey manufacturing again and likewise transition our power programs in order that we do the modernization that should happen.”

The Trump administration is definitely on board. The July 2025 government order fast-tracks gas-powered AI knowledge facilities by streamlining environmental permits, providing monetary incentives, and opening federal lands for tasks utilizing pure gasoline, coal, or nuclear energy — whereas explicitly excluding renewables from assist.

For now, most AI customers stay largely unaware of the carbon footprint behind their dazzling new toys and work instruments. They’re extra targeted on capabilities like Sora 2 – OpenAI’s hyperrealistic video-generation product that requires exponentially extra power than a easy chatbot – than on the place the electrical energy comes from.

The businesses are relying on this. They’ve positioned pure gasoline because the pragmatic, inevitable reply to AI’s exploding energy calls for. However the pace and scale of this fossil gasoline buildout deserves extra consideration than it’s getting.

If it is a bubble, it gained’t be fairly. The AI sector has develop into a round firing squad of dependencies: OpenAI wants Microsoft wants Nvidia wants Broadcom wants Oracle wants knowledge middle operators who want OpenAI. They’re all shopping for from and promoting to one another in a self-reinforcing loop. The Monetary Instances famous this week if the muse cracks, there’ll be a variety of costly infrastructure left standing round, each the digital and the gas-burning type.

OpenAI’s means alone to satisfy its obligations is “more and more a priority for the wider economic system,” the outlet wrote.

One key query that’s been largely absent from the dialog is whether or not all this new capability is even obligatory. A Duke College research discovered that utilities sometimes use solely 53% of their out there capability all year long. That implies important room to accommodate new demand with out establishing new energy crops, as MIT Know-how Evaluation reported earlier this yr.

The Duke researchers estimate that if knowledge facilities lowered electrical energy consumption by roughly half for just some hours throughout annual peak demand intervals, utilities might deal with an extra 76 gigawatts of latest load. That may successfully soak up the 65 gigawatts knowledge facilities are projected to wish by 2029.

That sort of flexibility would permit firms to launch AI knowledge facilities sooner. Extra importantly, it might present a reprieve from the frenzy to construct pure gasoline infrastructure, giving utilities time to develop cleaner alternate options.

However once more, that may imply shedding floor to an autocratic regime, per Lehane and lots of others within the business, so as a substitute, the pure gasoline constructing spree seems prone to saddle areas with extra fossil-fuel crops and go away residents with hovering electrical energy payments to finance at this time’s investments, together with lengthy after the tech firms’ contracts expire.

Meta, as an illustration, has assured it would cowl Entergy’s prices for the brand new Louisiana technology for 15 years. Poolside’s lease with CoreWeave runs for 15 years. What occurs to prospects when these contracts finish stays an open query.

Issues might ultimately change. Numerous personal cash is being funneled into small modular reactors and photo voltaic installations with the expectation that these cleaner power alternate options will develop into extra central power sources for these knowledge facilities. Fusion startups like Helion and Commonwealth Fusion Programs have equally raised substantial funding from these the entrance strains of AI, together with Nvidia and Altman.

This optimism isn’t confined to non-public funding circles. The joy has spilled over into public markets, the place a number of “non-revenue-generating” power firms which have managed to go public have actually anticipatory, market caps, primarily based on the expectation that they’ll sooner or later gasoline these knowledge facilities.

Within the meantime — which might nonetheless be many years — probably the most urgent concern is that the individuals who’ll be left holding the bag, financially and environmentally, by no means requested for any of this within the first place.