Hi Watchers!
ExxonMobil announced it will build an electric power utility. And it’s because of data centers.
The big tech companies are strongly committed to renewables. And as data centers grow to 2+% of global electricity demand, these zero emissions commitments create a nasty threat to ExxonMobil that fossil fuels will be substituted out of a booming power build-out.
So ExxonMobil is building gas plants to supply electricity to power-starved data centers. Once a gas plant is built, The petro giant is guaranteed to sell methane fuel to it for 30 years. Locking in a customer in a world going solar must sound good.
They announced the plant will have carbon capture. If it happens, it would be the first in commercial operation in the US. But that doesn’t address the methane released by extraction. Or the fact that 3% of “natural gas” is emitted in transportation/transmission.
Also – is adding carbon capture an admission that human-generated greenhouse gas emissions are a problem?
What do you think?
-Susannah