Meta’s natural gas binge could power South Dakota

Data centers have grown so large that their power needs now rival entire US states. Take Meta’s Hyperion AI data center for example. When the new AI data center is completed, it will use as much electricity as South Dakota.

Last week, Meta announced it would fund seven natural gas power stations – on top of the three it had already committed to building – to support the $27 billion data center. Combined, Louisiana’s 10 power plants will generate approximately 7.5 gigawatts of electricity. something more than the capacity of the entire state of Mount Rushmore.

Like many tech companies, Meta has touted its climate and environmental bona fides over the years. It regularly publishes sustainability reports and regularly crows about its purchases of sustainable energy. It effectively bought a nuclear power plant for twenty years.

Meta’s Hyperion data center location in Louisiana will test the company’s commitments.

Natural gas is being hailed as a “bridge fuel” – build a few natural gas plants now while renewables, batteries and nuclear power take hold. That’s almost certainly how Meta justifies the move internally.

But people have been making the bridge fuel argument for decades, and it’s starting to get a little vague. Renewables and batteries have fallen in price, while gas turbine prices have fallen have skyrocketed. Meta has been a leading buyer of solar, batteries and nuclear energy in recent years, which makes the decision to go big in natural gas all the more confusing.

TechCrunch contacted Meta. The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The huge turbines in Louisiana will dump 12.4 million tons of CO₂ enter the atmosphere every year, according to TechCrunch’s calculations, which are based on data from the Department of Energy. That’s 50% more than Meta’s entire carbon footprint in 2024, the most recent year in which such figures are available.

That figure also underestimates the impact on the climate because it does not include leaks from the natural gas supply chain.

Methane, the main component of natural gas, warms the planet 84 times more than carbon dioxide. Even leakage rates of 0.2% in the supply chain can influence the climate impact of natural gas worse than coal. In the US, natural gas production and pipelines are leaking methane at a rate that is closer to 3%. That is hardly clean energy.

The company’s latest sustainability report makes no mention of methane leaks. There is no mention of methane or natural gas at all. And yet the fuel is poised to become one of the biggest contributors to Meta’s carbon footprint in the coming years.

The company might be able to keep its climate pledge and find a way to offset those emissions through carbon removal credits. But now it will need many more, along with an honest calculation of exactly how much methane will leak into the atmosphere to fuel the new power plants.