Jeff Bezos Plans To Enrich Himself With Mammoth Carbon Dioxide Emissions In Texas
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There is no way to sugarcoat this. Amazon, which is owned by Jeff Bezos, has pledged to virtually eliminate carbon emissions from its various operations by 2040. However, in the past several years its total emissions have increased rather than declined. Is this an example of Bezos talking out of both sides of his mouth? Yes, it definitely is.
In a recent statement by Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan, she blithely asserted, “The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge.” Yet she claimed “our commitment hasn’t changed.” Well, yes it has, Margaret, and in most dramatic fashion. According to the New York Times, Amazon recently committed to building an enormous new data center in Pecos County in northwest Texas. A major consideration for building it there is ready access to methane supplies.
Data centers are becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States, because people blame them for causing dramatic increases in their utility bills. But the new facility will not be connected to the local utility grid. Instead, it will rely on 35 natural gas turbines, which combined will provide 7.65 GW of power. The company proudly proclaims that the Pecos County data center will be “powered by new on-site generation that won’t raise electricity costs for Texas families.” That’s the good news.
The bad news is, if built to specifications, it would be permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide a year! That is more than any other generating facility in the US according to the permitting application.
This is a double catastrophe because West Texas is known for its wind farms, which are reliably powered by the winds that sweep across the land all day every day. Those turbines create no carbon dioxide emissions as their blades traverse the sky. But the methane generators are available now. In fact, Elon Muck has just purchased the company that makes them.
Massive Carbon Emissions
Here’s something else for readers to consider. A modern one-GW combined cycle methane fired generating station emits less than 2 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. That means a 7.65 GW facility would emit less than 15 million tons each year — less than half of what the 35 generators Amazon is installing will create.
But the turbines for combined cycle generators are on backorder and will not be available for many years. Nothing must get in the way of Jeff Bezos cashing in on the artificial intelligence mania sweeping the country. There are too many highly lucrative government contracts available to allow a moment’s delay.
The public is being sold a bill of goods. Under the guise of protecting people from higher utility bills, Bezos and company are planning to poison the very air we breathe in the name of profits. (To be fair, Google and the other Big Tech companies are just as bad.)
It’s a bad deal for people and for the planet, but the Jackass In Chief, who gets all jiggly when he talks about “energy dominance,” issued an executive order last year that was designed to make it easier to build and operate data centers. Since then, federal agencies have introduced policies designed to fast-track their construction of fossil fuel burning generating stations.
Margaret Callahan noted that Amazon is “exploring” the use of solar energy and battery storage at the data center. It has used renewables to power other data centers. But does that excuse dumping 33 million tons of crud into the skies over West Texas every year? For those who believe that carbon dioxide is a wonderful thing, we invite you to consider what your personal life would be like with significantly more of it in the air you breathe. There can be too much of a good thing, my old Irish grandmother would say.
A Darker Future
The new power plant in Pecos County “could be a foreshadowing of what’s to come,” Michael Thomas, founder of Cleanview, told the New York Times. Cleanview broke the news about the new Amazon facility last week. “We’re going to see an explosion of off-grid gas projects” in Texas and elsewhere, he said.
Environmental groups said the scale of the plant would be damaging both for local air pollution and for the climate. “It’s going to absolutely have a huge impact on the environment, and on public health,” said Kathryn Guerra, a campaign director at Public Citizen, a corporate watchdog group that has opposed data center projects.
The Times pointed out that even though the new generating facility is permitted to release 33 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, power plants don’t usually emit the maximum amounts allowed. Still, the permits provide the plant with ample room to exceed the emissions of the most polluting plant in the United States — the coal-burning James H. Miller Jr. Power Plant in Quinton, Ala., which emits about 16 million tons of carbon dioxide a year.
Coal burns dirtier than gas per unit of electricity generated. However, Amazon’s planned power plant is far larger in scale, which means its total emissions will be significantly higher. More gigawatts equal more crud in the air, no matter the type of fossil fuel used to generate them. The spike in emission due to the data center frenzy is not normal and it is not okay. Only citizen opposition can slow or stop this juggernaut. The government as presently constituted won’t lift a finger to help. Vote in November as if your life depends upon it — because it does.
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