Meta’s gas glut could power South Dakota

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

Last week, Meta announced that it would fund seven natural gas power plants — on top of the three it had already committed to building — to support the $27 billion data center. When combined, the 10 power plants in Louisiana will generate about 7.5 gigawatts of electricity, a little more than the capacity of the entire State of Mount Rushmore.

Like many tech companies, Meta has touted its climate and environmental ambitions over the years. He regularly publishes sustainability reports and often rants about renewable energy markets. It essentially bought a nuclear power plant for 20 years.

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

Natural gas has been hailed as a “bridge fuel” — some gas-fired power plants are now being built, while renewables, batteries and nuclear have their legs. Meta is almost certainly justifying the move internally.

But people have been making the bridge fuel argument for decades, and it’s wearing a little thin. Renewables and batteries have plummeted in price, while prices for gas turbines have soared. Meta has been a leading buyer of solar, batteries and nuclear in recent years, which makes the decision to move into large quantities of natural gas all the more complicated.

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

Huge turbines in Louisiana will release 12.4 million metric tons of CO₂ into the atmosphere each year, according to TechCrunch’s calculations, which are based on data from the Department of Energy. That’s 50% more than Meta’s total carbon footprint in 2024, the most recent year for which such numbers are available.

This number is also an underestimate of climate impacts, as it does not include leakages from the natural gas supply chain.

Methane, the main component of natural gas, warms the planet 84 times more than carbon dioxide. Even 0.2% leakage rates along the supply chain can affect the natural gas climate worse than coal. In the US, natural gas production and pipelines are leaking methane at such a rate closer to 3%. It’s not pure power at all.

The company’s latest sustainability report makes no mention of methane leaks. It does not mention 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 may well stick to its climate commitment and find a way to offset these emissions through carbon credits. But now it will need a lot more than that, along with an honest record of exactly how much methane will leak into the atmosphere to power its new power plants.