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Texas Data Centers Could Erase Decades of Air-Quality Gains, Report Warns

Texas report says data centers could erase decades of air-quality gains, with soot more than tripling.

AI News Feed · 2026-10-22 07:10

Texas has become a center for the physical infrastructure behind generative AI, and new and proposed data centers are demanding large amounts of electricity. How developers and utilities meet that demand—with gas turbines or renewable energy—will determine how much pollution is added. The HARC analysis models what would happen if all planned data-center projects in Texas plug into the grid and are powered by the expected grid mix.

In that scenario, fine particle pollution, or soot, from the power sector would more than triple within five years, reaching its highest level since 2006. Smog-forming NOx emissions would increase 136 percent, approaching 2004 levels. Carbon dioxide emissions would climb 90 percent above 2025 levels. According to the report, the increase would be enough to wipe out decades of air-quality gains.

Those results are not fixed. HARC modeled different outcomes based on three projections for data-center energy demand. Many proposed data-center projects are speculative and could be abandoned. Developers can also limit environmental impact by building solar and wind farms onsite. If data centers pair grid power with renewable electricity generated onsite, NOx emissions could be up to 10 times lower, according to the report.

The opposite outcome is possible if developers build gas engines onsite to power data centers and avoid long waits for grid connections. That approach could result in the highest pollution levels modeled. Texas has become the leading data-center market by power capacity, with 26 gigawatts of existing and under-construction capacity. A separate Wood Mackenzie report published in March found that Texas has four times more proposed data-center capacity running on onsite power than any other state. In many cases, developers are turning to less efficient gas turbine technology to speed construction, making the data-center boom more polluting than it needs to be.

“There is a good chance that our children and grandchildren will breathe dirtier air than we did,” John Hall, HARC’s CEO, said in a press release. “The transportation sector, the state, and other stakeholders have been working for decades to successfully bring these [emissions] numbers down, and that progress is now at risk.”