Google plans to power a new data center with fossil fuels, yet release almost no emissions – here’s how its carbon capture tech works

Carbon capture and storage projects capture carbon dioxide emissions from industrial facilities and power plants and pipe them underground to geological formations. Nopphinan/iStock/Getty Images Plus

As AI data centers spring up across the country, their energy demand and resulting greenhouse gas emissions are raising concerns. With servers and energy-intensive cooling systems constantly running, these buildings can use anywhere from a few megawatts of power for a small data center to more than 100 megawatts for a hyperscale data center. To put that in perspective, the average large natural gas power plant built in the U.S. generates less than 1,000 megawatts.

When the power for these data centers comes from fossil fuels, they can become major sources of climate-warming emissions in the atmosphere – unless the power plants capture their greenhouse gases first and then lock them away.