Nearly 15 years worth of hard-won pollution reduction efforts are set to be undone in the United States, as a wave of data centers powered by gas plants enters construction.

That’s according to a new analysis by the Sierra Club, first reported by Bloomberg, which notes that the US energy grid is expected to belch out 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, assuming the country’s currently-planned AI developments enter operation as scheduled.

That’s a massive rise compared to even 2025 — itself a near-record year for US carbon emissions. If the AI industry and its data center developers get their way, the analysis found, emissions will likely skyrocket by 42 percent over the five-year period, an expected increase of 618 million tons compared to 2025.

“The numbers continue to sort of boggle our minds,”  the Sierra Club’s principal advisor for climate and energy Jeremy Fisher told Bloomberg.

Due to major bottlenecks in the electrical grid, many data center developers have opted for on- or near-site power plants, which are overwhelmingly fueled by noxious fossil fuels. Projects like Elon Musk’s 1.2 gigawatt data center near Memphis are already choking out residents with fleets of methane generators, which legal experts say flaunt all kinds of local permitting and federal environmental regulations.

Still, for anybody banking on having clean air to breathe, there is some hope. The number of data center projects at risk of cancellation is rising precipitously as time goes on — driven by grass roots organizing and increasing financial pressures.

So if you’re one of the many activists mounting opposition to data centers in your community, just know that the benefits of a cancelled hyperscale facility extend far beyond your backyard.

More on data centers: Thieves Are Making a Fortune Heisting AI Data Center Equipment

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Joe Wilkins

Correspondent

I’m a tech and labor correspondent for Futurism, where my beat includes the role of emerging technologies in governance, surveillance, and labor.

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This RAND Corp study has numbers every American should become familiar with, revealing how much oligarchs have stolen from the working class over the past half-century ($79T, see meme below)...

The RAND study first came out a decade ago, which back then they estimated the theft at $50 trillion. But the amount has risen dramatically during this Trump era, featuring Trumponomics which is prominently defined by his tax cuts for the wealthy & rising Trumpflation which has hit the struggling working class especially hard...

[https://www.thebulwark.com/p/fifty-trillion-reasons-why...](https://www.thebulwark.com/p/fifty-trillion-reasons-why...)

No wonder there's so much angst & anger out there, as stressed-out American families are living paycheck to paycheck with a justifiable sense they've been robbed by the system...

[https://time.com/.../50-trillion-income-inequality.../...](https://time.com/.../50-trillion-income-inequality.../...)

There are sensible solutions we can strive to achieve, but it's certainly not coming from Trump's MAGA. Our current president is only making things worse...

[https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthiest-1-percent...](https://www.businessinsider.com/wealthiest-1-percent...)

To get our country back on track by lowering costs & helping workers make a livable wage, let's relegate MAGA to the dustbin of history & unite around new policies that advance shared prosperity, upward mobility & opportunity for all...

[https://www.commondreams.org/.../25-trillion-theft-study...](https://www.commondreams.org/.../25-trillion-theft-study...)

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