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Ketan Joshi

ketan@climatejustice.social

<p>Hi, I&#39;m a climate and energy guy</p>

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    Apparently there are data centre sites in the US with *800* three megawatt reciprocating gas engine turbines https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/the-new-landscape-for-gas-turbines/

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    Just........wow 🫨 35 of 35 (!!) ballot measures on data centres in US midterms vote to restrict data centre development 28 of 35 feature over 70% voting to crack down on data centres https://ballotpedia.org/Data_center-related_ballot_measures,_2026

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    Just........wow 🫨 35 of 35 (!!) ballot measures on data centres in US midterms vote to restrict data centre development 28/35 with &gt; 70% voting to crack down on data centres https://ballotpedia.org/Data_center-related_ballot_measures,_2026

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    &quot;Worryingly, according to Future Energy Networks, UK gas grids got 113 data center connection enquiries in 2024-25. 7 were accepted, adding up to 15.4 TWh of gas capacity - enough to heat 1.3 million homes&quot; https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paczyzak_7-uk-data-centers-secured-154-twh-of-gas-share-7521501546384150529-J_5H/?rcm=ACoAABBbg1kBL4bGVwJOur529vIonS7OTt82ADg

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    Some absolutely mind-boggling numbers in this excellent article. As I&#39;ve been screaming for years now: AI is on track to become a major global polluting industry on par with the worst we&#39;ve got today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/10/19/big-tech-vowed-lead-climate-now-its-driving-fossil-fuel-boom/

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    There is still an air of uncomprehending confusion in tech (and frankly, even in some climate / energy spaces) around why people do not like AI https://www.choice.com.au/data-protection-and-privacy/data-collection-and-use/how-your-data-is-used/articles/australians-not-happy-with-ai

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    &quot;We&#39;re going off grid using gas, to reduce bills&quot; - no, you&#39;re not. You&#39;re switching from the power grid to the gas grid. Plus you&#39;re raising the costs of air pollution and climate pollution. &quot;Worryingly, according to Future Energy Networks, UK gas grids got 113 data center connection enquiries in 2024-25. 7 were accepted, adding up to 15.4 TWh of gas capacity - enough to heat 1.3 million homes&quot; https://www.linkedin.com/posts/paczyzak_7-uk-data-centers-secu...

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    &quot;Elon Musk’s AI company xAI is reportedly looking to buy as many as 418 homes in a Mississippi neighbourhood near its data centres. However, the offers come with a condition: homeowners must agree not to join a lawsuit against the company over noise from its nearby power plant&quot; https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/technology/tech-news/elon-musks-ai-company-is-reportedly-targeting-418-homes-near-its-mississippi-data-center-with-buyout-offers-tied-to-waiving-noise-lawsuit-claims-county-r...

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    Nothing demonstrates the ugly, frantic desperation in the air around the AI boom and fossil fuels than this company https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/10/united-airlines-ceo-doubts-supersonic-airliner-from-boom-will-be-ready-by-2029/

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    Ireland&#39;s Climate Council puts it really nicely: when expanding data centre demand eats up renewable energy, you have nothing left to serve fossil fuel replacement, or to push prices down, or to clean up our air. What is renewable energy for? Is it to serve society, or is it to serve Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman? You have to think about that question and answer it, instead of ignoring it. https://www.climatecouncil.ie/media/climatechangeadvisorycouncil/contentassets/documents/news/CCAC-...

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    Norway&#39;s water and resources directorate warns data centre growth without new power additions will result in high prices, and crowding out of other industries https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/data-centre-growth-triggers-backlash-norway-over-power-deficit-concerns-2026-10-29/

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    I wonder if Anthropic loudly and unambiguously hand-wringing that it&#39;s not going to be able to burn enough fossil fuels is going to discourage climate orgs from buying obscenely expensive Claude subscriptions https://www.wired.com/story/anthropic-ipo-identifies-gas-supply-as-big-near-term-risks/

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    The grim opposite of Denmark de-prioritising data centre connections - Germany de-prioritising renewable energy connections https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/qa-will-germanys-upcoming-electricity-grid-reform-slow-down-energy-transition

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    Just a nice, simple, open dataset of US data centre projects (thank you FracTracker) https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/5a4d072ad01449bba5698a80103fb909

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    Fossil fuels cause blackouts https://slguardian.org/sri-lankas-810mw-coal-power-plant-to-remain-offline-after-nationwide-blackout/

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    A nice modelling demonstration of the fact that even as the efficiency of computation improves, total climate impacts from data centre growth still rise https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=26.10.0

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    Universities around the world are rapidly adopting energy-intensive fossil-fuelled genAI software, and basically none of them are disclosing the climate costs - my new piece for Crikey, here: https://www.crikey.com.au/2026/10/22/unsw-artificial-intelligence-openai-chatgpt-energy-impact-environment/

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    This is reflective of a broader trend in the world formerly known as &amp;#39;climate tech&amp;#39; where people, orgs and companies are ditching climate and pivoting instead to serving the hunger of big tech https://heatmap.news/energy/net-power-data-center-boom

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    I often hear &amp;quot;you can use a chatbot if you have expertise in your field&amp;quot; but.....here&amp;#39;s a world-record-holding adventurer asking Claude about powering a satellite connection while out in the field, getting the wrong answer, and then losing contact for 18 hours. Turns out experts are vulnerable to laziness and slop as much as everyone else.

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    Two things - Yet another example of previously climate focused projects flipping to fossil-fuelled data centres - Presenting figs in capacity not generation misleads. This could be a majority fossil-fuelled project pumping out ~6-7 MTCO2-e / yr

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    &amp;quot;The power that the data centers are looking for is equivalent to dozens of smelters, perhaps even 100 smelters...we are afraid that it will affect us&amp;quot; https://www.nrk.no/artikkel/dressfolka-trudde-dei-kunne-ta-sauda-sa-motte-dei-havard-22-1529678

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    You could fund the IPCC for the next half-century with a miniscule fraction of the amount of money that&#39;s been poured into hypey AI/climate start-ups *just this year* We&#39;ve got some absurd, messed up priorities at the moment https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03403-6 https://www.linkedin.com/posts/julienamorgan_climate-ai-startups-have-raised-10-of-total-share-7520876620191109120--1zB/?rcm=ACoAABBbg1kBL4bGVwJOur529vIonS7OTt82ADg

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    Fossil fuel giants behind hundreds of programs targeting Australian children https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-30/fossil-fuel-companies-education-programs-target-children/107112152

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    This post is an amazing telling of how the story of RCP8.5 was used by climate deniers, fossil fuel advocates and industry think tanks to further - via CAAD https://caad.info/analysis/reports/spinning-renewable-success-into-a-climate-conspiracy-co-opting-the-climate-science-story-of-rcp8-5/

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    Firmus is a major Australian data centre developer and it was touting its green credentials while secretly courting fossil fuel companies for gas supply. I 100% guarantee they are not the only one. https://archive.ph/E7ddP

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    The sheer arrogance of the tech industry is unparalleled. In Germany, because data centres aren&#39;t getting immediate grid connections, they&#39;re just building their own fossil fuel plants instead (and breaking Germany&#39;s climate targets) https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/data-centres-germany-planning-own-fossil-fuel-plants-citing-slow-grid-connections-report

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    This is another amazing example of an industry screaming blue murder when actually held using regulation to its obviously hollow techno-solutionist pleading. Data centre developers talk about reusing waste heat because they want their projects approved, not because they actually want to reuse waste heat (also see: the reason fossil fuel companies talk about CCS). https://www.wired.com/story/europe-data-centers-climate-change/?utm_social_type=owned

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    Would it be too mean to compare the estimated savings from COP31&#39;s website being in dark mode to the rising emissions of all the petrotech hyperscalers that will be attending COP31 to greenwash AI

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    Texas remains a very nice example of what happens with unregulated energy production: you get a nice lovely surge of renewables and and even bigger and extremely-not-lovely surge of fossil fuels. https://earthjustice.org/feature/data-center-byop-energy-report

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    In the report where Microsoft discloses its ever-worsening environmental harms, it tries to sort of plead away consequences by claiming that using different, irrelevant and unrelated forms of AI morally neutralise the damage they&#39;re doing with ever-expanding slop factories