AI data centers in Texas are using a permit designed for dry cleaners to run thousands of diesel generators, and critics say the state’s new crackdown won’t fix it
The data center boom powering a lot of AI infrastructure has provoked pushback from a wide array of groups critical of how they are built and run. The backlash has been strong enough that even in Texas, which had become a hub of new data centers, Governor Greg Abbott felt the need to order an audit of those seeking connections to the state’s electricity grid and to tell the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to stop issuing permits sought for them until the audit is complete.
But a rather large complication is making that audit seem inadequate. Thousands of diesel generators and increasingly large private power plants sit next to the data centers. Some developers are building or planning enough power generation on-site that the distinction between a data center and an industrial power facility starts getting fuzzy.
It's a problem raised in an open lettersent to Abbott by...
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