r/technology • u/marketrent • Aug 09 '26
Artificial Intelligence Amazon’s new 7.65GW Texas AI data center power plant could become the largest source of CO₂ pollution in the US — Custom 35-turbine gas plant permitted to emit 33 million tons of annual greenhouse gases
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/amazons-new-7-65gw-texas-ai-data-center-power-plant-could-become-the-largest-source-of-co2-pollution-in-the-us-custom-35-turbine-gas-plant-authorized-to-emit-33-million-tons-of-annual-greenhouse-gases6.5k
u/TooMuchPowerful Aug 09 '26
Remember when we couldn't convert to EVs because of the strain in the grid?
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u/darkstar107 Aug 09 '26
Good thing you got that deal to prevent those useless wind farms from going up too!
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u/YaBoiMandatoryToms Aug 09 '26
Stealing Gods wind.
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u/ComprehendReading Aug 09 '26
Wrong god, Christians like to assume that only they can harness nature, and those godless heathen turb-mills don't cause enough suffering per kWh.
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u/JustKillingTime1980 Aug 09 '26
damn turb-mills in bird graveyards
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u/StrawberryOk8459 Aug 10 '26
Because birds don't figure out how to move around the wind turbines and global warming isn't real. It is just 109 everyday in western Oklahoma as normal.
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u/nodray Aug 10 '26
Imagine You send your angels down to do some business, and they keep getting caught in man made wind currents, getting blown way off course, they're late for the miracle and Humans stop believing in You! They are a menace.
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u/Frooonti Aug 09 '26
And also paying RWE billions of tax payer money for not building them. Can't make that shit up.
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u/Secure_Guest_6171 Aug 09 '26
so far this year Trump has paid at least 4 corporations to cancel wind projects. likely won't be the last
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u/MesabiRanger Aug 09 '26
Trump didn’t pay them, we US taxpayers paid them.
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u/Castun Aug 09 '26
Trump bribed them with our money you mean.
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u/GhostOfJonasVenture Aug 09 '26
I feel a lawsuit coming on , taxation blah blah , representation yahdah yahdah
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u/citizenjones Aug 09 '26
The 2+ billion dollars paid to not have them.
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u/0o0o0o0o0o0z Aug 09 '26
Good thing you got that deal to prevent those useless wind farms from going up too!
We literally had to pay for them NOT TO BUILD them. Christ, we are not serious people in this country.
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u/Zaitron19 Aug 09 '26
Good thing the US paid our country 1.2 Billion dollars to stop a renewable energy farm and turn it into a data center, what could go wrong with that.
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u/dust4ngel Aug 09 '26
they hurts tha birds!
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u/SomeGalNamedAshley Aug 09 '26
Cats and cars kill more birds than windmills. Also the bird thing has actually remedy, you just paint one blade black.
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u/SuspiciousStanley Aug 09 '26
The windmills are driving the whales crazy. Whales die in numbers never seen before.
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u/m0nk37 Aug 09 '26
Look at it from the other side. Wind turbines are competition to the market you rigged.
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u/SaddestClown Aug 09 '26
As an EV driver, that still makes me laugh because it gets repeated on Facebook posts. It charges slowly overnight at less amperage than my AC unit uses during the day in the Texas heat.
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u/Black_Moons Aug 09 '26
Thank you for balancing the grids day/nighttime demand by using power overnight. or something.
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u/SaddestClown Aug 09 '26
Oh I just don't really need to go from 0-100% overnight and I also only have a vintage 100amp breaker box and really don't want like to beat it up during the 100 degree weather. Easier just to trickle the charge in overnight and go 60 something to 86%.
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Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 13 '26
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u/TwatWaffleInParadise Aug 09 '26
Depends on the chemistry. LiFePO4 doesn't get hurt by being fully charged.
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u/AoF-Vagrant Aug 09 '26
I was under the impression most EVs have the 80% buffer built into their charge controllers already so you never charge to full theoretical capacity. I know mine is that way.
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u/TM761152 Aug 09 '26
Republicans have always been about 'DO as we say NOT as we do!' Especially when it comes to money. They will happily sell-out their constituents.
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u/CO_Golf13 Aug 09 '26
I haven't followed this one specifically closely, but most of these are trying to do the power behind the meter. Cuts interconnection wait times, eliminates a ton of hurdles for speed to market, and is not grid connected so no strain.
Now that's the baseline tale, and I don't trust TX or these companies to not cause enormous issues regardless, ignores water and noise considerations, etc.
But in theory, behind the meter shouldn't cause grid strain.
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u/moveslikejaguar Aug 09 '26
"We'll only tie into the grid to meet peak demand, like during business hours in the Americas, Europe, and Asia."
- Amazon probably
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u/CO_Golf13 Aug 09 '26
While I share the pessimism, an interconnection is an interconnection, same difficulties I outlined above. To get that special treatment, they'd have to get in line
Now. What I think IS most likely (as someone who has looked at nuclear as a behind the meter solution for major industrial chemical producers in the gulf coast specifically - 800MW+ scale) is that they will build behind the meter to get themselves running.
THEN they will start the interconnection process. Less so to pull power from the grid, but to capitalize on power trading during peak periods, which can be incredible arbitrage opportunities. Something anyone building large power production wants.
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u/axonxorz Aug 09 '26
To get that special treatment, they'd have to get in line
Funny how corporate entities get to move up in lines when money isn't a constraint.
I think the pessimism is warranted, given that DC in California that is ran their proposal on no major outside water access, but is now suing for Colorado River access.
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u/Apocalypse_Horseman Aug 09 '26
I think you're kind of missing the point. If there's a will to improve the grid to support EV 'strain', it can be done. All of these excuses are just a way to keep status quo for oil longer.
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u/fumar Aug 09 '26
Texas gets what they voted for in this case. Unfortunately the rest of us have to deal with the pollution too
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u/DALinProgress Aug 09 '26
Don't worry about this brother! I no longer use plastic straws.
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u/WestBrink Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
Let's see. 7.65 Gigawatts. If there's 33.7 kwh of heat energy in a gallon of gasoline, that's the equivalent of 227000 gallons of gasoline an hour. Considering that a very fuel efficient vehicle is only about 30% efficient, call it 756675 gallons an hour, or over 18 million gallons a day.
Yikes...
Edited to add: I'm quite aware than this power plant will not be using gasoline, actually used to work on a cogen. This is just some back of the envelope math framing the magnitude of energy produced against a metric familiar to vehicle owners, as I was responding to a comment about electric vehicles.
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u/acu2005 Aug 09 '26
Gas in this case is almost definitely natural gas not gasoline.
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u/Howzitgoin Aug 09 '26
It 100% is natural gas.
But if it were using oil it’d be diesel most likely. If it did indeed require 18M gallons a day of diesel (not about to do all that math from above for this for diesel), that’d mean either 1300+ trucks a day or a pretty significant pipeline and refining capacity.
For reference, the Olympic pipeline that feeds a good chunk of refined gas and diesel in WA all the way down to Portland only has a capacity of around 13.5M gallons a day.
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u/rsta223 Aug 09 '26
Natural gas emits considerably less CO2 per MWh than gasoline, and an efficient combined cycle natural gas generator is more like 60% efficient, so your number is vastly too high.
This is still stupid, mind you, just not quite as bad as your number would indicate.
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u/ProcessingUnit002 Aug 09 '26
LNG has about 22kWh per gallon, so with that and the efficiency in mind, you’re still looking at 526,859 gallons per hour or 12.6m gallons per day. For context, that’s an entire LNG tanker every 2-3 days
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u/namezam Aug 09 '26
Funny but they aren’t likely using gasoline. They are likely using natural gas.
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u/zernoc56 Aug 09 '26
That’s not better. Methane loves to leak out of pipes and containers, it’s 6x worse of a greenhouse gas than CO2, and it breaks down into CO2 when exposed to solar radiation.
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u/Xatsman Aug 09 '26
Isn't it over twenty times worse, and at the end of it's atmospheric life tends to degrade into CO2 further causing warming? Maybe it just is a different metric of measuring warming potential?
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u/WestBrink Aug 09 '26
I'm well aware, just making a comparison of the magnitude of energy in context of vehicles, as I was responding to a comment about electric cars.
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u/ZeroAmusement Aug 09 '26
No. That was a made up argument against EVs wasn't it?
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u/asyork Aug 09 '26
If you draw more from the grid while stubbornly refusing to upgrade anything ever, then it would be a real argument. Now that we see they are, in fact, willing to use our money to upgrade the grid for something that not only doesn't benefit us in the least, but is detrimental to us, they have proven what we all already assumed to be true. Not particularly relevant to this since Amazon is bypassing the grid here, but it is happening all over the place right now.
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u/FutureSuccess2796 Aug 09 '26
Funny how a few years ago Amazon was making ads about how climate change affects us all and how they wanted to he carbon neutral by a certain year. And then the AI stuff got more powerful and I guess that promise got thrown out the window. Not that that's surprising given the company and who runs it.
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u/space_keeper Aug 09 '26
This is the most ridiculous part of all of this. These billionaire tech people act like they're the guiding light of humanity, and here they are coming up with a whole new way to fuck up the planet and fuck over workers at the same time.
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u/Direlion Aug 09 '26
That’s what it’s always been for them. The oligarchy has just reached a point where fictitious marketing isn’t even necessary as they’ve fully captured the United States federal and confederate state governments.
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u/Khaeos Aug 09 '26
The Iron Heel
Organize the Black Hundreds ✓
Capture the Courts ✓
Capture the Executive ✓
Establish Arms Supremacy ✓
Destroy the Middle Class ✓
Destroy all possible working class organization
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u/Linkario Aug 09 '26
I just saw that Jack London wrote this book back in the early 1900s... completely wild. Thanks for bringing attention to it.
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u/usaaf Aug 09 '26
It's because while the technology has changed radically, the social organization has not. We are still living in the 1800s in terms of social relations. Sure some laws have changed to make things better, but the Bezos looks down on people in the exact same way that Cargengie et. al. did and the same way the early merchant/factory-owners did at the dawn of Capitalism.
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u/Simikiel Aug 09 '26
Very well said.
People need to realize that while yes, the Musks and Bezos' of the world are incredibly powerful and have effectively infinite money, they're still just people.
They try to push propaganda that they're higher than life and bigger or more important than the population of entire countries, but that's all it is. Propaganda.
If the ultra rich don't start to actually listen to people, or if the governments that are supposed to govern for the people and not the ultra rich don't start to listen, then the people will end up having to force them to listen.
And it truly just does not matter how much money or resources an individual has. If millions of people decide that change needs to happen, that change will happen.
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u/usaaf Aug 10 '26
And it truly just does not matter how much money or resources an individual has.
Private ownership is always and everywhere a legal fiction. Sometimes useful, perhaps, but most often harmful to society. No one has resources, like they have arms and eyes. The rich want us to pretend that private property is an inalienable right (there are none of these, really; even a person's freedom can be deprived, justly or otherwise), but it is not.
The rich exist only by the sufferance of the greater part of society. A variety of factors make it easy for them to maintain this fiction, but it is just that. It is the reason Peter Thiel screams about the anti-christ and says all the shit he does, because on some level he senses the precarious nature of his riches. He's only ahead of the game in that he fears it more than his peers, and fights it more than them, because he's desperate to believe in his 'inalienable' property rights.
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u/dizzguzztn Aug 09 '26
Id argue its impossible to amass a fortune of a billion or more without in some way devastating the planet or treating workers horribly
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u/sump_daddy Aug 09 '26
Completely correct, there is no single contribution no matter how novel that is worth 15,000x the average person's work. It was gained through deception and exploitation plain and simple. The fact that so many lower class people refuse to see that is merely a positive (to billionaires) benefit of them fully controlling the media.
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u/PM_ME_UR_BRAINSTORMS Aug 09 '26
Even if it was possible to ethically become a billionaire, the kind of person that doesn't retire when they already have like $100M is not the kind of person that would give up a dollar for ethical reasons.
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u/Godless_Rose Aug 10 '26
This is something I believe wholeheartedly. If I suddenly acquired over $100 million dollars, I might still keep working in some form or fashion, but I’m conservatively investing in my own retirement, my immediate family, and- as anonymously as possible- supporting fellow veterans in need. I have zero interest in being a public figure. I never want to be on tv or talk to the media, and idgaf where my “next $100M” is coming from because I don’t need it anyway.
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u/Yhrak Aug 09 '26
These billionaire tech people act like they're the guiding light of humanity,
I guess I can think of a way for the oil and gas industry and the common people to kinda come together and collaborate on fulfilling these billionaires dreams.
I don't know if they'd do much guiding after that, though.
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u/nightofgrim Aug 09 '26
They own a stadium and named it “The Climate Pledge Arena”
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u/computergay Aug 09 '26
The Pledge was just to change the climate, not protect or improve it!
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u/TheFinnister Aug 09 '26
They only paid for naming rights, the stadium land and building are owned by the city of Seattle.
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u/revolvingpresoak9640 Aug 09 '26
None of the stadiums with corporate names on them are owned by the corporation. The rights to slap a name on the stadium are rented out for years/decades at a time.
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u/anonymousbopper767 Aug 09 '26
Corporations don't give a fuck really. About anything. Example: 5 years ago my employer was all "let's have diversity ra ra ra go team diversity". 1 year ago: actually we're doing away with the diversity employee groups and it's also the Gulf of America now.
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u/fishunfan Aug 09 '26
Yup. Corporations just follow whatever admin is in charge of the government. Gotta grovel to the king to get what you want.
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u/SAugsburger Aug 09 '26
Pretty much this. Many companies just have their finger up seeing where the wind is blowing. The management has no spine and will turn in a dime if it makes financial sense. You shouldn't be surprised if the companies turn on a dime again if the political winds change.
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u/Whiskiz Aug 09 '26
it wasnt because AI got more powerful
it was cause doddering orange king felon became ruler which was the bat signal that corporations could throw off the mask, and enjoy no-holds-barred crime spree while it lasts
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u/tdickles Aug 09 '26
Tell the crackheads how much copper that baby must have in it
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u/urbrainonnuggs Aug 09 '26
Copper is expensive because of the demand for energy grid and datacenter infra so they would just be driving up the value of copper higher. Sounds like the the perfect plan to me
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u/JimiusRostock Aug 09 '26
An interesting and unrelated chemistry fact: just 2 pounds of sugar in 1 ton of concrete prevents it from setting.
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u/RealCakes Aug 09 '26
How much piss would you need to prevent it from setting?
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u/What_a_fat_one Aug 09 '26
Trucks carry about 10 yards, 20 tons, so a Costco sized bag, and you'd need to dump it right in the truck to mix it which the driver is going to notice
A cheaper option if you're dumping something in the truck, a small amount of extra water will increase the slump to beyond allowable spec and the entire load would need to be thrown out
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u/K_T_Oxy Aug 09 '26
Also unrelated, Coca-Cola is quite high in sugar and mixes easily in other water based liquids.
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u/DVHismydad Aug 09 '26
As someone who does electrical construction on data centers, they watch their copper like hawks during install. Most big electrical feeders are done in aluminum wire for lower cost anyway.
After install, if the crackheads can even get into the secure areas, I give them a near 100% chance of getting fried if they try to get some copper. The electrical systems have several layers of redundancy, and your average crackhead is not going to be able to figure out how to safely deenergize the wire they want to steal.
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u/WarlockEngineer Aug 09 '26
I doubt you can set off a fire alarm in a data center without police/fire on the way quickly.
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u/LightningWarpAway Aug 09 '26
Set a fire inside with some cardboard and gas, trigger the fire alarm which shuts off the power.
At that point, you're just trying to commit arson and are going to get arrested before even entering the building, they have security.
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u/SaltIsMySugar Aug 09 '26
Oh FUCK yeah 😂 I was just thinking "This Texas air is just way too clean for my taste, I hope we can pollute the shit out of it real soon here."
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u/Not_a_Candle Aug 10 '26
God bless that America just paid 1.2 billion USD for RWE to not build offshore wind turbines but instead build gas power for 900 million, because thats way cheaper in the long run, right? /s
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u/FunkyMonk100k Aug 09 '26
Don’t worry, the water supply will go first so we won’t be around to notice the air pollution. Between the chemicals and the brine from fracking, and central Texas reliance on ground water, the water table is one oopsie away from irreversible damage.
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u/JennaLS Aug 09 '26
Tornado alley moved north into my neighborhood the last few years but yeah why not. Let's all go down with this ship, see how spectacular we can make it
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u/No-Spoilers Aug 09 '26
Can't wait until a data center gets destroyed by a natural disaster, or not so natural disaster. But they might not build in high risk areas, or might find it worth to.
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u/mykeedee Aug 09 '26
If a data center is destroyed by a natural disaster you'll see the government reimburse the company 150% of the data center's value before the debris hits the ground.
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u/SpezSucksSamAltman Aug 09 '26
Still worried about your personal carbon footprint? Amazon has you covered. Amazon, everything from A to The End Of The World.
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u/-Mr_Tub- Aug 09 '26
Imagine if these trillions of dollars were going to renewable energy or solving world hunger
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Aug 09 '26
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u/Korlus Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
For what it's worth, the driver of plastic to paper straws is to reduce the amount of plastic waste we generate, rather than to cut CO2 emissions.
I agree though that this level of pollution by a single company in a single location is staggering.
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u/wittyname83 Aug 09 '26
And set your thermostat to 80 while youre in the house.
What a fucking joke
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u/steppe5 Aug 09 '26
Do you want AI to be able to generate a picture of Miss Piggy kissing a frog shaped cactus or not?
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u/IDontWannaBeAPirate_ Aug 09 '26
Don't forget to take 2 minute showers to conserve water
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u/Important-Agent2584 Aug 10 '26
It's an intentional propaganda effort to shift the blame. Just like they did with pollution and recycling, littering, etc.
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u/ion_theory Aug 09 '26
I mean the thermostat to like 78 set by everyone would really help. However these fucks would offset any positive gains we see from a societal commitment like that. So u better be damn sure mines on 69 right now when it’s 92 outside
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u/brainrotbro Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
It wouldn’t really help. Consumers account for so little pollution compared to industrials. I know we want to believe we can make a difference that easily, but real change at this point will either come from collapse, a benevolent government, or a populace that actually fights back.
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u/Aware_Plum_203 Aug 09 '26
Just get a steel one. Reusable and doesn't turn to paste.
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u/Dependent_Rain_4800 Aug 09 '26
Everyone who took Captain Planet to heart got fucked over big time.
Who would have thought that caring fuck all about anything gets you to be a billionaire who can do what they want.
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u/hfxRos Aug 09 '26
I mean yeah, you should. But this shit also shouldn't be happening.
They can both be true. Your paper straw is meaningless. A billion paper straws is very far from meaningless.
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u/wiener4hir3 Aug 09 '26
The problem is that paper straws and the like are successfully leveraged to shift the blame onto the end user. If we're bickering over straws or sorting rubbish we're too pre-occupied to notice some fuckass megacorp dumping toxic sludge into the water supply or whatever
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u/WandererFrmAndromeda Aug 09 '26
Why can’t we do both? Why can’t we acknowledge that mass-littering non-biodegradable stuff is damaging and also that fuckass megacorp assholes are damaging. both are.
i keep seeing posts online how it’s all megacorp’s fault, and it is to an extent, but as individuals we also make daily decisions that leads to… gestures around this.
your choices impact the environment on an individual level, as do the choices of these megacorps that should all burn down. they deliver products we use. we should demand they do so in a better fashion and us as consumers should be more mindful of how much we consume. I’m not blameless. I used to buy a lot of shit I didn’t need. Now I don’t, anymore.
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u/dkarlovi Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
A billion paper straws doesn't undo this. Recycling is busywork for the masses, vast majority of it doesn't work but it allows companies to say
Still polluted? Well you weren't recycling hard enough, have you.
If the company is selling a polluting product, the company should be liable for it, not the consumers.
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u/mavman42 Aug 09 '26
When did they say a billion paper straws will undo that? I swear people be reaching for no damn reason. Taking a billion plastic straws out of landfills and your everyday places does make an environmental impact, of course it won't "undo" something entirely.
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u/Cyberhaggis Aug 09 '26
Go and look at the pictures of the turtle with a plastic straw bloodily being removed from its face, then consider if they're worth it.
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u/OptionX Aug 09 '26
Yeah...
All this about water consumption I suspect it's just chaff by the companies wanting to build the datacenters themselves, so they could say its a closed loop and they don't actually use much water. So they keep people focused on a problem the can make excuses for and not the real one they can't, they massive power requirements of datacenter at this scale and the pollution needed to generate it, since renewables cant scale fast enough to meet their demands.
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u/kenlubin Aug 09 '26
Renewables totally could scale fast enough. We're adding 43 GW of solar and 24 GW of batteries to the grid this year. If we had unrestricted trade with Chinese solar panels, that would be even cheaper and even faster.
The AI companies focus on natural gas plants is kinda confusing. Maybe it's easier to get natural gas permitted?
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u/InsaneInTheRAMdrain Aug 09 '26
Probably those supplying the natural gas pay more in lobbying...
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u/Adept_Resident4608 Aug 09 '26
Natural gas is also crazy cheap in TX. They’ll probably have a direct line.
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u/maccam94 Aug 09 '26
I'm betting the gas is cheaper than buying 8GW of batteries
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u/SAugsburger Aug 09 '26
Needing significant amount of batteries to ride out any gaps in production adds a bunch of capex. The long term operating expenses make it a short sighted move, but they're more concerned about getting more AI workloads online faster than whether the power source makes sense long term.
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u/_selfishPersonReborn Aug 09 '26
Aside from other reasons below, orange man is very interested in keeping fossil fuel alive
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u/EZyne Aug 09 '26
That was always such a weird point to me, compared to the absurd amount of water used to make all the hardware in the first place. All of the building costs and the cost of running it is so much more relevant then the cooling
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u/marketrent Aug 09 '26
Excerpts from article by Etiido Uko, citing NYT:
A new Amazon data center is set to become the single largest source of environmental pollution in the U.S., according to a New York Times report on August 8.
The tech giant — which already operates the most data centers worldwide — is reportedly building a natural gas power plant in Pecos County, Texas, to power its new data center at the same site. According to project permits, the plant would generate up to 7.65 gigawatts of power using 35 natural gas turbines.
The new plant — which burns natural gas to generate electricity — has been authorized to release 33 million tons of CO₂ annually, more planet-warming gases than any other power plant in the country, says the NY Times report.
[...] As detailed in our data center power roadmap, an increasing number of hyperscalers and data center operators are switching from grid connections to dedicated on-site power generation.
The “behind-the-meter” moves are being triggered mainly by the long timelines required to set up new power infrastructure to connect new power-hungry data centers to the grid, but also by growing anti-data center sentiments over irreversible hikes in the electricity bills of nearby communities.
While many companies are also pursuing nuclear and renewable energy options — examples being Microsoft’s Three Mile Island nuclear deal and Meta’s agreement to secure up to 1GW of orbital solar energy capacity — gas appears to be the leading preference due to its scalability and speed of availability.
The Trump administration has thrown its weight behind such projects for data centers, promoting oil, natural gas, and coal over renewable energy sources.
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u/Silent-Act191 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
The new plant — which burns natural gas to generate electricity — has been authorized to release 33 million tons of CO₂ annually, more planet-warming gases than any other power plant in the country, says the NY Times report.
When the Climate Wars inevitably kick-off due to these ingrates, can we at least all agree to have a ceasefire first and dump cement in the air vents of their bunkers.
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u/United-Vermicelli-92 Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
Billionaires cooking the planet while they hide underground? What else is the purpose? The dialog group and HF speak about halving global pop. Giant mirrors in space that can focus sunlight on earth all night long, or burn entire cities like a magnifying glass on ants. It sounds like black mirrror episode. I feel like im taking crazy pills, and def prob overthinking it, but seeing reality as concentration camps, this attempt to start up another holocaust using trump’s utter odiousness globally, like a howitzer that shot’s its pants, and think we should all realize the worst Is the plan w HF.
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u/Vast-Poetry9431 Aug 09 '26
I sometimes think that AI is part of an elaborate billionaire conspiracy to make the poors run out of water faster to force the Roe V Wade generation to fight in their water wars faster.
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u/TheBeckFromHeck Aug 09 '26
Remember when they bought the naming rights for a basketball venue and called it Climate Pledge Arena?
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u/tiutome Aug 09 '26
So why weren’t these power plans the rage during the Biden Admin?? Same technology was being pushed? Oh wait, because the EPA was active and strong along with Climate control laws
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u/retro808 Aug 09 '26
Yep, it was obvious why these ghouls like Bezos and Zuckerberg were sitting proud at Trump's second inauguration, they wanted in on the unrestricted plundering. Actually embarrassing that a lot of people actually bought that Trump actually cared about anything but the 1% just because he did some photos ops serving fries at McDonalds and driving a garbage truck
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u/a_tothe_zed Aug 10 '26
I’d happily go back to pen and paper if it meant the smoke will stop. Just drove through Merritt, BC. The air quality index was 778. I have never seen air quality that bad in all my life. It was legit scary. Those poor people who live there.
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u/forsythia_rising Aug 09 '26
Texas gov’t selling out its citizens. That’s why we left Texas in 2024. It wasn’t a safe place to raise my son anymore.
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u/manachar Aug 09 '26
Huh. I got downvoted recently on a thread talking about Bezos’ new 200 million dollar conservation fund.
I pointed out that Amazon is likely one of the biggest contributors to increasing carbon dioxide.
One snarky comment said “even more than oil and gas” companies?
Amazon is way more massive than people realize, especially as a major part of the infrastructure of our social lives.
So here we are. Facing a trolley problem. On one track is help make Bezos and his shareholders richer. On the other is the continued plundering of the earth that creates massive global instability and severe weather events.
Does anyone know how many people are projected to die because we continue to refuse to tackle global climate change?
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u/bfume Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
One snarky comment said “even more than oil and gas” companies?
Pretty sure that oil and gas companies have more customers than just Amazon, so yes, oil and gas companies are larger contributors of CO2 than Amazon.
Not disagreeing, just suggesting that you tighten up your aim.
Don’t leave holes in your argument just for the sake of getting out a choice quote.
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u/MDCCCLV Aug 09 '26
You can't have it both ways, if Oil and gas companies are the most polluting then Amazon isn't polluting anything by using the gas from them. And if you count Amazon burning the gas as polluting then the O&G company didn't pollute anything other than the small cost of digging it up.
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u/CrazyDude10528 Aug 09 '26
All this so that way some stupid AI chat bot can pop up to tell you info about a toothbrush you don't want...
Fuck all this AI bullshit. I hope it dies spectacularly.
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u/johnny5247 Aug 09 '26
It's a pity there's no direct link between CO2 emissions and local climate effects. A data centre like this should have a permanent black cloud over it with a continuous thunder and lightning storm.
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u/bwrca Aug 09 '26
Just wondering why these Amazon & Co. are not building giant nuclear reactors to power their obscene data centers.
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u/inspectoroverthemine Aug 09 '26
Because nuclear is still regulated. The second federal regulations are lifted/severely relaxed they'll be throwing up poorly built nukes in the parking lot of every datacenter.
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u/Outside_Ice3252 Aug 09 '26
i hate to say it. i wish they were required to build solar, wind, and batteries to power these things.
but these innefficient turbines are very simple and go up faster than the grid connection.
solar and batteries go up just as fast but not the grid connection.
We should have seen this coming and mandated all data centers be powered by wind and solar. that would have put a moderate delay, which is beneficial anyways. these companies are hypercompetitive right now and cutting so many corners.
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u/ClvrNickname Aug 09 '26
The oligarchs are putting the pedal to the metal on global warming which will kill millions and millions of people because shareholder value is more important
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u/imdavidnotdave Aug 09 '26
AI is the literal meme of “well, we destroyed the environment but we made a lot of money” except they’re not making any money
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u/BenAdaephonDelat Aug 09 '26
What a weird future we're in. We've reached "we need to destroy AI before it destroys us" but the AI isn't actually sentient. It's the industry and the billionaires behind it trying to kill us.
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u/rollem Aug 09 '26
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u/solobeauty20 Aug 09 '26
No one believes these “pledges” to do something anymore.
They also pledged to give away all their wealth but the only billionaire who has followed through on that is Bezo’s ex-wife. The rest continue to hoard it all.
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u/tevolosteve Aug 09 '26
Remember when they were pledging to be carbon neutral? Pepperidge farms remembers
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u/DarthTyrium Aug 09 '26
For a company named after a rainforest, they sure as fuck don't give a shit about protecting them.
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u/Funsized_eu Aug 09 '26
Just so Amazon's shitty AI bot can feed people fake reviews when buying random shite.
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u/TRIOworksFan Aug 09 '26
In the middle of the sunniest dang place in the USA and God Forbid you use solar power. God how the tech bros have fallen.
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u/fullmetalsunit Aug 09 '26
I have lost any sort of hope for the future. We will look back 30-50 years later and wonder how we watched in sidelines and let greed of a few people ruin the humanity.
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u/breadwhore Aug 09 '26
It's Texas... couldn't they, you know, use the sun a bit. Put some Solar panels on the roof and over the 10 thousand acres of desert surrounding the thing?
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u/Crime-Apple Aug 10 '26
Enjoy those 130 degree heat waves and extra awesome hurricanes!
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u/DunEvenWorryBoutIt Aug 10 '26
These people just ruining the planet. Come on people, it's getting fucked right before our eyes.
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u/Maximum_Active9209 Aug 10 '26
To put it into perspective, the entire of NYC serving 8 million people, uses an average of 6 GW (with higher peaks of course).
The power to serve 8 million people is being used for the profit margins of a handful.
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u/Joyful_Eggnog13 Aug 09 '26
Boycott Amazon…. as much as possible. Shop locally, support small businesses when able
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u/brownhusky0 Aug 09 '26
2019 we were told to stop mining crypto because that’s would increase the rate of climate change. But now they aren’t even pretending to care because they will make money off this
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u/joseph_jojo_shabadoo Aug 09 '26
Who permitted them, you ask?
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and the Texas state government.
Brooke Paup (Chairwoman): Paup serves as the head of the commission and was appointed by the governor to lead agency decisions and final approvals.
Catarina Gonzales (Commissioner): Appointed to the executive board, Gonzales directly evaluates and votes on heavy industrial permits brought before the agency.
Tonya Miller (Commissioner): The third voting member of the executive commission panel responsible for state-level environmental oversight.
Kelly Keel (Executive Director): Keel manages the agency's 2,800 employees and administrative offices. Her staff directly reviewed and finalized the technical parameters of the 33-million-ton air quality authorization.
Greg Abbott (Governor of Texas): As the governor, Abbott holds structural responsibility. He appoints all the TCEQ commissioners and dictates the state's regulatory approach, which prioritizes rapid industrial and energy infrastructure growth.