Folks: here's a meaty long read for you on how Australia's data centre industry lobbied (successfully) to kill regulations that would force them to cover their new demand with renewables And how (this is spicy) the desire within some climate/energy spaces to see data centres as 'cleantech' helped

How Australia’s data centre lobby is winning its fight to to freely pollute

Data centre greenwashing is getting worse, alongside the tech industry’s hunger for fossil fuels. Why help them?

ketanjoshi.co

A massive new gas plant in Texas will be built with much less efficient technology than regular gas plants. It’s far from the only data center power project to rely on dirty turbines.

The Real Reason Data Center Gas Power Plants Are So Dirty

A massive new gas plant in Texas will be built with much less efficient technology than regular gas plants. It’s far from the only data center power project to rely on dirty turbines.

wired.com

With Russell Westbrook announcing his retirement today, reminder that he recently became a very public climate and clean air advocate. I caught up with him last month: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/athletes-n...

These athletes refuse to stay silent about global warming

Russell Westbrook is not down with climate hushing.

climatecoloredgoggles.com

From @mollytaft.com on data centers and gas turbines: "...these kinds of turbines are also increasingly being put to use at other data center projects around the US. That could have big implications for the environmental impact of artificial intelligence—and the future of the US grid."

molly taft@mollytaft.com · 4d ago

NEW: i dove deep into the plans for several massive power plants being built specifically to power data centers crucially, they're designed much less efficiently than gas-fired power plants that are connected to the electric grid: www.wired.com/story/real-r...

While I have you, check out @mollytaft.com’s story from earlier this week on how the real impact of AI on emissions is probably going to be in helping fossil fuel companies produce more oil and gas—at the upper bound estimates put the impact as about equivalent to Russia’s energy sector.

AI Could Help Fossil Fuel Companies Create More Emissions

New research finds that by making the fossil fuel industry more productive, AI could help increase carbon emissions by up to nearly 5 percent—vastly outpacing the impact of data centers.

wired.com

Nice work by @mollytaft.com that touches on one of my biggest questions about the super-size gas plants being proposed. There's a disconnect, I think, between the equipment and the task in these plants, and that's not likely to end well. www.wired.com/story/real-r...

The Real Reason Data Center Gas Power Plants Are So Dirty

A massive new gas plant in Texas will be built with much less efficient technology than regular gas plants. It’s far from the only data center power project to rely on dirty turbines.

wired.com

Gas-powered plants fueling AI data centers aren’t just enormous—they’re also enormously inefficient. Case in point: Just one Amazon power plant is permitted to emit as much as about 160 average-sized gas plants. @mollytaft.com explains all:

The Real Reason Data Center Gas Power Plants Are So Dirty

A massive new gas plant in Texas will be built with much less efficient technology than regular gas plants. It’s far from the only data center power project to rely on dirty turbines.

wired.com

Here's Amazon's two new planned fossil-fuelled AI data centres next to the ENTIRE POWER GRIDS OF SEVERAL LARGE COUNTRIES Together, the two gas-burning data centres will emit more than Spain's entire grid, if built

NEW: i dove deep into the plans for several massive power plants being built specifically to power data centers crucially, they're designed much less efficiently than gas-fired power plants that are connected to the electric grid: www.wired.com/story/real-r...

The Real Reason Data Center Gas Power Plants Are So Dirty

A massive new gas plant in Texas will be built with much less efficient technology than regular gas plants. It’s far from the only data center power project to rely on dirty turbines.

wired.com

Renewable energy startup Zanskar managed to revive a failing geothermal well in New Mexico, with help from AI: www.wired.com/story/zanska... via @mollytaft.com

How to Bring a Geothermal Well Back From the Dead

Startup Zanskar has created one of the most productive geothermal wells in the US at a power plant that had been in decline for years.

wired.com

Here's the key point: if cost reductions occur in every industry simultaneously, it’s not at all implausible that the increase in fossil fuel use would be 4-5X bigger than the increase in renewable production (because primary energy from fossil fuels was 4-5X bigger than non-fossil sources in 2025)

Former Microsoft execs Holly and Will Alpine show how AI tools are worsening the climate crisis. AI's emissions reductions from helping solar, wind, and other clean technologies are vastly outweighed by the emissions increases from its enabling fossil fuel development.

molly taft@mollytaft.com · last wk.

NEW: some scary new research out today showing that the fossil fuel industry's use of AI could possibly increase global energy emissions by as much as 4.8% — about as much as Russia's energy sector emits yearly that number is much larger than global data center emissions projections

enabled emissions and data center emissions are wrapped up with each other. it's not just about the sales pitch; it's a shared ideology of extraction, profit-seeking, and forced consumption.

molly taft@mollytaft.com · last wk.

NEW: some scary new research out today showing that the fossil fuel industry's use of AI could possibly increase global energy emissions by as much as 4.8% — about as much as Russia's energy sector emits yearly that number is much larger than global data center emissions projections

NEW: some scary new research out today showing that the fossil fuel industry's use of AI could possibly increase global energy emissions by as much as 4.8% — about as much as Russia's energy sector emits yearly that number is much larger than global data center emissions projections

AI Could Help Fossil Fuel Companies Create More Emissions

New research finds that by making the fossil fuel industry more productive, AI could help increase carbon emissions by up to nearly 5 percent—vastly outpacing the impact of data centers.

wired.com

GREAT NEWS: Researchers have found something AI is really helpful with. The less-great news is that it’s helping fossil fuel companies produce more oil and gas; the estimated impact on emissions is much greater than, for instance, the data center buildout. @mollytaft.com has you covered!

AI Could Help Fossil Fuel Companies Create More Emissions

New research finds that by making the fossil fuel industry more productive, AI could help increase carbon emissions by up to nearly 5 percent—vastly outpacing the impact of data centers.

wired.com

my latest: i can confirm there's been a concerted campaign to develop a data center in northern virginia within a historically important national park site relying on help from a senior advisor to the interior department under the first trump admin will the land swap happen? for @heatmap.news

How the National Park Service Wound Up in a Data Center Deal

The agency is reportedly considering a land swap that would allow AI infrastructure in one of northern Virginia’s largest green spaces.

heatmap.news

Fantastically interesting piece about the vast range of people lining up - for reasons beyond energy bills - against data centres in the US. Well worth your time. If we want Europe to move off big tech towards our own compute (as FOTI do), we should insist on sovereign AND sustainable cloud, now.

molly taft@mollytaft.com · 2w ago

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

I know I have said it on here before, but until they started talking about putting data centers in my community I had never seen so many people all agree on one thing and be so politically active. Literally no one wants them except the businesses building them and corrupt politicians.

molly taft@mollytaft.com · 2w ago

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

really excellent

molly taft@mollytaft.com · 2w ago

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

Suggested reading. www.wired.com/story/how-da...

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

NEW: Meta reviewed, approved, and ran more than 50 ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads. They ran for nine months. Some were live this week. After WIRED asked about them, researchers found ~30 more

Meta Ran Ads That Contained AI-Generated Child Sexual Abuse Imagery

More than 50 offending image and video ads were published across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, or Threads, according to Meta’s ad library data. Some ran as recently as this week.

wired.com

reupping this since he just (almost certainly) won!

molly taft@mollytaft.com · 4w ago

talked to @abdulelsayed.bsky.social about poop lettuce, wildfire smoke, and what he'd do in congress to address our "DOGE'd" federal public health apparatus: www.wired.com/story/abdul-...

Saw some attack ad yesterday accusing some condidate of having big data center money behind them. Notably, I wasn't sure if it was sn attack from the left or from the right. Felt like a cultural tipping point.

molly taft@mollytaft.com · 2w ago

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

Reading this and can't help but think about how communities of all kinds come together in the immediate wake of disasters, politics aside. And how I've been racially slurred the hardest by a good ol' southern boy who nicely helped me pull my car out of a ditch after a storm. The future is unwritten.

molly taft@mollytaft.com · 2w ago

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

If you read one piece today make it @mollytaft.com's excellent new piece out on the politics of data centers

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

Data center resistance certainly has some of its roots in classic NIMBYism: Lots of Americans simply don’t trust stuff being built, in their backyards, by powerful companies for mysterious purposes. But the pace of the outrage that’s built up around the country is shocking.

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

for months, ive been trying to map out the ways the right and the left were uniting against data centers and AI both here's my story on my efforts, featuring steve bannon's anti-tech prophet, my girlfriend's high school english class, and the unabomber:

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

@mollytaft.com on the diverse mix of ideologies that make up the data center opposition. It's a pretty wide range of views, intersecting around a deep distrust of Big Tech. The headline says data centers "broke" US politics, I'd say they've created an opening for a long overdue shakeup.

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

This is the definitive yarn you want to read about data center resistance and the unlikely political bedfellows the movement has drawn. excellent feature by @mollytaft.com www.wired.com/story/how-da...

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com

All year, I've been watching data centers take hold as THE political issue of this cycle. But no one has dug into it quite like @mollytaft.com www.wired.com/story/how-da...

How Data Centers Broke American Politics

What the Unabomber, Steve Bannon’s tech guy, and Bernie Sanders taught me about the great data center backlash of 2026.

wired.com