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Amazon is building a massive natural-gas power plant in West Texas to support one of its new data centres, but the project is attracting attention for a reason far beyond its enormous size. The plant could potentially become one of the biggest single sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. The power project, known as GW Ranch, is being developed in Pecos County, Texas, where Amazon is building a major data centre to handle the growing demand for AI services.
Unlike a conventional power project that supplies electricity to homes and businesses through the grid, GW Ranch is expected to primarily generate electricity for Amazon’s data centre. The facility is planned to have 35 natural-gas turbines capable of producing around 7.65 gigawatts of electricity. Amazon has confirmed that it purchased the site and intends to buy power generated by the plant.
Plant could be permitted to emit 33 million tons of CO2
The biggest concern surrounding the project is its potential pollution. According to Cleanview, which tracks data centres and the power infrastructure built to support them, GW Ranch has received a Texas permit allowing it to emit as much as 33 million tons of carbon dioxide. That figure is particularly striking because it is higher than the permitted emissions of the largest coal-fired power plant in the US. In reality, the plant may never reach the maximum emissions allowed under its permit. However, the size of the permitted limit has raised questions about how much pollution could come from the facility once it is fully operational.
The project also shows a growing problem for the technology industry. AI services require enormous computing power, and that means companies need more electricity to run the data centres behind them. Instead of waiting for the existing electricity grid to provide all that power, some of the world’s biggest technology companies are increasingly turning to dedicated energy projects. Meta and Google, among others, have also explored or invested in gas and other non-renewable sources as their computing requirements increase. That creates a difficult environmental trade-off: AI may be driving technological progress, but powering the infrastructure behind it can require huge amounts of energy and generate substantial emissions.
For Amazon, the situation is particularly sensitive because of its long-standing climate commitments. Founder Jeff Bezos previously pledged that Amazon would reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. Yet the company’s emissions have increased for several consecutive years, with the rapid expansion of AI and data-centre infrastructure adding to its energy requirements.
Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan acknowledged that circumstances have changed since the company’s climate commitment was established. She told The New York Times, “The world looks different now than when we co-founded the climate pledge,” while adding that “our commitment hasn’t changed.”
Amazon’s data centres also using billions of gallons of water
The environmental impact of Amazon’s AI infrastructure isn’t limited to carbon emissions. The company said its data-centre operations around the world withdrew approximately 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025. To put that into perspective, that amount would be enough to provide 2 litres of water every day to around 13 million people for an entire year. Amazon said direct water use at data centres it owns and operates declined 2 per cent from 2024, even as the company expanded its data-centre network. The company also reported using about 0.12 litres of water for every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed by its data centres in 2025, which it says is more efficient than the industry average. Some of its facilities also use treated wastewater instead of drinking water.
Data centres need water mainly to prevent their powerful computer systems from overheating. Amazon says its facilities can rely on outside air for cooling around 90 per cent of the time, turning to water-based evaporative cooling during the hottest periods.
The company has also pledged that by the end of this decade, it will return more water to communities than its direct operations consume.
What exactly is a data centre?
A data centre is essentially a giant facility packed with computers, servers and storage systems that keep digital services running. Every time someone streams a video, makes a UPI payment, stores a photo in the cloud or uses an AI chatbot, data has to be processed and stored somewhere. As AI tools become more powerful and widely used, the infrastructure required to run them is growing rapidly. Amazon’s new Texas project shows the scale of that expansion and the environmental cost that can come with it.
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