Gas thirst for the AI boom: New data centers endanger German climate goals

The hunger for computing power currently knows hardly any limits due to the AI hype. However, the price for technological progress is increasingly also measured in greenhouse gas emissions. The latest edition of the "Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker" (GOGPT) by the Global Energy Monitor reveals a development that alarms climate activists and experts. Worldwide – including in Germany – a trend is emerging where the expansion of gas power plants is inextricably linked to the growth of digital infrastructure.

The GOGPT globally records plants with a capacity of 50 megawatts or more, and in the EU and Great Britain, from 20 megawatts. The new data from the overview shows that the energy transition in the digital sector is faltering.

The extent of the dependence is particularly evident in Germany. Current plans by Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche (CDU) include new gas power plants at strategically important locations such as Mainz, Frankfurt, Birstein, Leipheim, and Großkrotzenburg. These are primarily intended to supply data centers. According to the tracker, capacities of up to 1.95 gigawatts are directly related to these computing clusters. This corresponds to almost 13 percent of the total announced or under construction gas power plant expansion in Germany, which amounts to a good 15 gigawatts.

What about national climate goals?

What at first glance appears to be a necessary bridging technology for supply security turns out, upon closer inspection, to be a potential stumbling block for national climate goals.

Julian Bothe from the organization AlgorithmWatch sees a danger in this development. The competition for ever-increasing computing power threatens to undermine climate goals, as existing legal regulations are insufficient. While the Energy Efficiency Act stipulates that data centers must be operated entirely with renewable energies in their balance from 2027 onwards. However, the practice of "balancing" accounting is heavily criticized.

So far, it has been sufficient for operators to purchase green electricity certificates throughout the year, while the actual electricity from the socket during peak load times continues to come from fossil sources. Bothe therefore calls for a tightening: permits should only be granted if the operation is covered by additionally created regenerative sources at every single hour.

Corset for data center expansion desired

A look across the Atlantic shows where the journey could lead without strict regulation. In the USA, planned gas power plant capacities have almost tripled within a year to 252 gigawatts. A quarter of the global expansion is taking place there, driven almost exclusively by the immense energy demand of AI data centers. This trend counteracts international decarbonization efforts and, according to AlgorithmWatch, serves as a warning signal for the European market. If the expansion of renewables does not keep pace with the speed of server farms, natural gas threatens to become a permanent companion to digitalization.

Social acceptance for this course is also dwindling. A representative survey commissioned by AlgorithmWatch in October shows that a broad majority of citizens are calling for significantly stricter regulation. Two-thirds of respondents are in favor of mandating the construction of new data centers to be coupled with the simultaneous expansion of additional wind and solar energy capacities. Transparency is the keyword here: voters want to know how much CO₂ is actually emitted for their cloud services and AI models.

The federal government now faces the challenge not of watering down the Energy Efficiency Act – as feared – but of adapting it to the realities of the AI boom. The data from the Global Energy Monitor provide the necessary facts for this. They show that the mere hope for a green future of IT is not enough if billions are simultaneously flowing into fossil infrastructure and this is being locked in for decades. Without coupling grid expansion, additional green electricity, and strict hourly proof for data centers, digital progress threatens to become a climate risk.

(wpl)