The AI Boom Will Increase US Carbon Emissions—but It Doesn’t Have To

As the world keeps warming and electricity bills take center stage in national politics, the data center boom will drive up US carbon emissions and electricity costs. But a few simple policies could help bring both emissions and prices back down.

The Data Center Boom: A Growing Concern

The US is poised to see a 60 to 80 percent increase in electricity demand through 2050, with data centers alone making up more than half of the increase by the end of this decade, according to a new analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). If policies stay the same as they currently are—with attacks on renewable energy being embedded into regulatory regimes and few significant national policies restricting carbon emissions from power plants—we could see between a 19 and 29 percent increase in CO2 emissions from US power plants tied just to the energy needs of data centers over the next 10 years.

The Trump Administration’s Anti-Renewables Agenda

The Trump administration has moved aggressively against both renewable energy and climate policies in the past year. While the UCS modeling accounts for some policy changes, including backpedaling on regulations on coal-fired power plants, doing away with renewable tax credits, and delaying some offshore wind projects, it didn’t take others into account. An Interior Department policy that has mandated review of all wind and solar projects on federal lands, for instance, has created a whopping bottleneck of 22 gigawatts of projects—enough to power more than 16 million homes.

The Cost of Inaction

Just reintroducing tax credits for wind and solar wouldn’t be enough to stave off the worst impacts of climate change. The UCS study also modeled the costs of policies that would more seriously decarbonize the US grid as demand rises from AI. This includes more stringent power plant regulations and more investment in the transmission upgrades that renewable energy needs. This scenario, the analysis finds, would slightly raise wholesale electricity costs through 2050, by about $412 billion—a 7 percent increase. However, the analysis finds, it would avoid up to $13 trillion in climate costs: damages incurred by floods, wildfires, droughts, and other extreme weather worldwide, as well as the local health costs associated with dirty power plants.

The Path Forward

Despite the Trump administration’s aggressive attacks on renewables and eye-watering figures for energy demands from AI, there’s some reason to hope. Pier LaFarge, a cofounder at Sparkfund, a utility services company, believes that utilities’ increasing deployment of batteries, coupled with contracts that make data centers pay for infrastructure and other associated costs, will help drive electric rates down for regular consumers. (Unlike credits for wind and solar, tax credits for batteries mostly made it through the One Big Beautiful Bill negotiations.) In this scenario, the US could look more like Texas: tons of cheap wind and solar on the grid, a few gas plants, and installing a lot of batteries.

The Role of Big Tech

Big Tech made a variety of pledges in recent years to cut emissions and be more climate-friendly; many of these pledges were promptly derailed by the growth of AI. It’s not clear whether these companies are ready to push directly against the Trump administration to advocate for more renewable generation. Last week, with encouragement from the White House, Microsoft rolled out a set of commitments for its data centers to be “better neighbors” to communities where they’re located. There were no mentions of emissions or climate policies in the set of commitments provided by Microsoft, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The Need for Stronger Guardrails

“There definitely needs to be much stronger guardrails in place for data centers themselves, as well as for making sure that we have enough electricity capacity and generation in place to power those data centers, and that it doesn’t take away from other customers,” says Steve Clemmer, the lead author of the analysis and the director of energy research at UCS.

Conclusion

The AI boom will increase US carbon emissions—but it doesn’t have to. With a few simple policies, we can bring both emissions and prices back down. The path forward is clear: we need to invest in renewable energy, upgrade our grid, and make data centers pay for their infrastructure and associated costs. The Trump administration’s anti-renewables agenda may be a setback, but it’s not a roadblock. We can still build a cleaner, more sustainable future for all.

Source: https://www.wired.com/story/the-ai-boom-will-increase-us-carbon-emissions-but-it-doesnt-have-to/