Gas-Powered Data Center Projects Could Emit More Greenhouse Gases Than Entire Nations

New gas projects linked to just 11 data center campuses around the United States have the potential to create more greenhouse gases than the country of Morocco emitted in 2024, according to emissions estimates from air permit documents examined The infrastructure is being developed to largely Michael Thomas, founder of clean energy research firm Cleanview, calls behind-the-meter power "a crazy acceleration of emissions." He says: "It's almost like we thought we were on the downside of the Industrial Revolution, retiring coal and gas, and now we have a new hump where we're going to rise. That terrifies me in a lot of ways." One of the first examples is in Memphis, Tennessee, where xAI set up gas turbines at its Colossus 1 data center campus to quickly develop Grok, its AI. Community members living in the low-income Black community around the campus protested the turbines over air pollution concerns. Air permit applications for both the Colossus campus in Memphis and the near Microsoft is reportedly looking into purchasing power from a Chevron-backed natural gas project in West Texas. That single project, according to its permit, could emit more than 11.5 million tons of greenhouse gases each year, more than the yearly emissions of the entire country of Jamaica. Actual greenhouse gas emissions from power plants are usually lower than what is on their air permits, since air permit modeling is based on the scenario of a power plant constantly running at full capacity. Alex Schott, director of communications at Williams Companies, which is building three behind-the-meter power plants in Ohio for Meta, said internal modeling shows actual emissions could be "potentially two-thirds less than what's on paper." Even if actual emissions end up being half of the permit numbers, they still could create more greenhouse gas emissions than the country of Norway emitted in 2024. Energy researcher Jon Koomey estimates that while emissions from efficient grid-connected gas plants could be 40 to 50 percent of the permitted numbers, data center emissions could be much closer to what is modeled on the permit, given that data centers do not have to respond to customer demand. Gas projects developed as part of the Stargate Project, a multi-company AI effort originally started to build out infrastructure for OpenAI, also represent a significant potential emissions source. Permit documents for just three Stargate-affiliated natural gas projects show they have a combined potential to emit more than 24 million tons of greenhouse gases each year. Research released in January from Global Energy Monitor showed that nearly 100 gigawatts of behind-the-meter natural gas power for data centers were in the US development pipeline at the start of 2026, up from just 4 gigawatts in early 2024. Last month, three Senate Democrats sent questions about emissions from data centers to several leading tech companies, including OpenAI, Meta, and Fermi.