Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania last week in an AI and fossil fuel Lovefest, was flank by President Donald Trump – Cabinet Members and Officer From major technology and energy giants such as Google and Exonmobil – “the most important man of the day” was the head of the environmental protection agency Li Zeldin. “He is going to get a permit for you for you in about a week, will you say a permit for the world’s largest electric producing plant?” Trump told Chakli in the audience. After that week, Trump Administration Exempted Coal -powered power plants, facilities that make chemicals for semiconductor manufacturing, and Some other industrial sites From Biden-air pollution regulations,
If Trump has its own way, the next generation of data centers will dirt compared to the previous. This is not enough to kill renewable and paves the way for more coal and gas plants to provide electricity to AI data centers. Tram is also obsessed with tossing environmental security.
Trump claimed, “It costs a lot to clean things environmentally,” Trump claimed Interview In October 2024 with Rogan. On his appointment for the head of EPA (or, rather,, Run it into the ground), Zeldin said that he would focus on “US Energy Dominance” and “Mak (ING) America The AI Capital of the World”. EPA announced Thousands trimmed on July 18Its tickle Research and development arm,
“It costs a lot to clean things environmentally.”
At the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, Trump tried to take credit for personal investment of $ 36 billion for data center projects and $ 56 million for new energy infrastructure. The ceremony was mostly in pomp and circumstances, but it is suggest that the Trump administration says it wants to make Pennsylvania a new center for AI data centers. It is a swing state that Republicans are keen to go into their columns, but also Major coal and gas producersSitting over a major gas reserve, fracting in Pennsylvania (as well as Texas) helped to enter “” in “.Shell revolution“In the 2000s, which made America the world’s major gas producer.
It was to start converting under the direction of former President Joe Biden. He set Target For the US to get all its electricity from carbon pollution-free sources by 2035. And in 2022, he signed the inflation reduction act, which was filled with tax incentives to make new solar and wind farms as well as other carbon-free energy sources. If it remained intact, there was a law expected This decade to reduce American greenhouse gas emissions by about 40 percent.
This law came at an important time for tech companies, which were expanding data centers as the AI Arms Race had steamped. The demand for electricity in America is growing for the first time in more than a decade, thanks to the energy-lustful data centers. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and other technical giants have their own climate goals, promising to reduce their carbon footprints by supporting renewable energy projects.
But Trump is making it difficult to manufacture those projects in America. Republican voted in the big expenditure bill passed this month to air the tax encouragement of biden-era for solar and wind energy. Bill likely to reduce power generation capacity in 2035, according to which an analysisSolar and winds with most damage from the fields which will no longer be formed.
All these new data centers still need to get their electricity from somewhere. “They won’t operate by air,” Trump said during the summit, repeating misleading things about renewable energy, which have become the cornerstone of new climate refusal. He signed an executive order in April, On the way To study commerce, energy, and internal departments, “where coal-powered infrastructure is available and AI is suitable for supporting data centers.” Trump, Fossil fuel supported by donorsA campaign was launched on a promise of “drill, baby, drill” – a slogan that he doubled in the incident. He also referred to Homer City Generating Station, An old coal plant that is reopening as a gas plant will give electricity to a new data center,
deal The summit announced at the summit to expand its gas pipelines in Pennsylvania and Equinore spent $ 1.6 billion, “$ 1.6 billion,” to promote natural gas production in Ikwinor’s penylvania facilities and to explore opportunities to explore gas from flexible power production to data centers. “
“They will not operate by air.”
As of January, data centers for bounce in new gas pipelines and power plants in Southeast are a “main driver” Report From the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). South -east is home “Data center street“A hub in Virginia through which about 70 percent of the world’s internet flows through traffic. Even though the AI models become more efficient over time, the amount of electricity they are currently demanding, they can lock communities across the US in prolonged dependence on fossil fuels because new gas infrastructure is formed in utilities.
Zeldin’s work is now essentially to remove any regulatory obstacles that can slow down that development. From its first day in the office, “It was clear that there would be a big hand in allowing EPA to improve which has worked as a road to cut the obstacles so that we can increase the development of AI,” as Zeldin Last week was written in a Fox News Odd“The company seeking to build an industrial facility or power plant should be able to create this before obtaining emission permits,” he said. And after Go ahead to refund pollution rules for power plantsThe Trump administration is now allegedly working on a rule that will undo 2009 “Dangers detect” This allows EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
Zeldin also writes that when it comes to the Clean Air Act permit for the pollutants, it considers a “minor emitter”, EPA will meet only “minimum requirements for public participation”. One AI action plan The White House has been dropped on July 23, which proposes to create new-ranked exclusion for data center-related projects from the National Environment Policy Act (NEPA), a sunshine law that compulsory inputs from local communities on major federal projects. The scheme instructs agencies to identify federal land for “mass development” of data centers and power generation.
There are other sports factors that can derail Trump’s fossil-fuel agenda, including A backlog for gas turbine in high demandSolar and wind farms are still rapid to manufacture and A Figure of new electricity than coal or gasAnd we can see some developers to complete the projects before the biden-era tax credit disappear completely. An early bright place for renewal was the fact that the data centers used to train AI are theoretically easy to create close to far-flung air and solar projects. Unlike other data centers, they do not need to create near population centers to reduce delay. They can also theoretically to match their operations with the flow and flow of power generation when the sun shines and blows the winds.
But so far, things are taking shape differently in the real world. “This is a race to join as soon as possible,” says senior associate US Power Nathali Limandibhrath at Bloomeburgenf.
Data centers developers are also concerned that if they especially manufacture features to train AI close to renewable energy, they can be abandoned with property stuck under the road. They will instead will continue to build data centers close to population centers, where they can reproduce the facility for other uses if needed. They explode more for their deer for 24/7 running, so the data centers are almost bending towards electricity generation from gas and nuclear power (and nuclear power has more bipartite support than other sources of carbon-free energy).
Kathy Kunkel, an energy consultant at IEEFA, says, “There is no question that AI is using more fossil fuels in the United States and is actually installing us back in terms of climate change.” Tech giant Google and Amazon announced shopping with Pennsylvania Summit Hydroelectric And Nuclear powerRespectively. But their most recent stability reports suggest that their greenhouse gas pollution is still increasing, taking them away from their climate goals of reaching pure zero emissions.
“If (tech companies) wanted to meet their stability goals, they could do it,” says Kunkel. “They are getting a free pass, obviously, from the Trump administration.”
