In order to power Meta’s massive AI data center being built in northeastern Louisiana, the local utility company has proposed building three new natural gas power plants. It’s a move that “flies in the face of Meta’s climate commitments,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, wrote in a letter sent to Meta on Wednesday and shared exclusively with Fast Company.
The Senate committee is launching an inquiry into Facebook and Instagram’s parent company over this fossil fuel expansion, seeking information about how the move squares with Meta’s claims that it is currently net zero across its global operations, and its aim to reach net zero emissions across its value chain by 2030.
“Meta’s decision to power its data centers with fossil fuels while claiming net zero status is deeply troubling. This isn’t leadership—it’s greenwashing. Families are already paying the price for climate inaction through higher insurance costs,” Whitehouse said in a statement to Fast Company. “Meta’s backslide from its own climate pledges risks triggering broader economic harm at a time when we urgently need corporate responsibility.”
Meta’s mega AI data center
Meta’s forthcoming data center will be the company’s largest, a $10 billion, four million square foot facility in Richland Parish, Louisiana. Meta expects construction to be complete in 2030, and has said it will “play a vital role in accelerating our AI progress.”
Meta is working on the project with the local utility provider, New Orleans-based Entergy—which has requested expedited state approval to build three combustion-turbine gas plants in order to generate 2,300 megawatts of electricity.
In a statement to Fast Company, Entergy said natural gas “is the lowest reasonable cost option available that can support the 24/7 electrical demands of a large data center like Meta,” and that neither solar or wind would provide enough reliable, around-the-clock energy. The site is also near Haynesville Shale, “one of the most abundant natural gas shale plays in the United States.” The Louisiana Public Service Commission is still reviewing Entergy’s proposal for the new gas plants.
Meta’s data center climate promises
As part of Meta’s climate commitments, the company has invested in both carbon removal and clean energy projects. It says it will continue this work amid the Louisiana data center project and its need for three new natural gas plants.
Entergy’s new natural gas generators are expected to come online between 2028 and 2029. Entergy says future upgrades to those generators could incorporate carbon capture. Meta says it’s exploring carbon capture technology at an Entergy power plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and that it’s working with Entergy to bring at least 1,500 megawatts of new renewables to the grid.
In 2024, Meta announced a solar farm project in Louisiana with electricity company RWE that will provide 374 megawatts of power. The company says that since 2020, it has offset its global electricity use by buying renewable energy portfolios to “match” its own electricity consumption, and that it will do the same with the new Louisiana data center.
The EPW Committee’s concerns
The Environment and Public Works (EPW) committee’s inquiry says these moves are vague and “offer little reassurance” about the data center’s climate impact.
“Meta has not shown that the planned generation from its solar plant will match its data center electricity load and displace equivalent fossil fuel generation. Neither Entergy nor Meta have disclosed details about the carbon capture project or the amount of Meta’s financial contribution, raising doubt as to whether Meta is meaningfully offsetting its emissions,” Whitehouse’s letter reads. “And Meta’s construction of new gas plants risks locking in future fossil fuel assets; a responsible corporate actor would show how these plants will be soon phased out or equipped with carbon capture.”
These gaps, he adds, “raise concerns that Meta’s commitment to achieving net zero emissions is not genuine.”
Through its inquiry, the EPW is requesting various documents from Meta, including analyses and calculations about the data center’s expected energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions; Meta’s intended carbon capture funding (and whether it’s contributing to a new carbon capture project or an existing one); details on how much carbon the company will remove from the atmosphere; and if Meta will install carbon capture at these new gas-fired plants.
It’s also seeking data to support Entergy’s assertion that natural gas is the only power option, and justifications for why renewables with battery storage weren’t a feasible alternative. The inquiry also asks for analysis to show whether all of Meta’s actions—the new gas plants, solar capacity, and carbon capture—align with the company’s net zero goals.
Whitehouse has requested responses by May 28, and though Meta is not legally required to reply, the inquiry puts added public pressure on the data center project—which has already received scrutiny from environmental and consumer protection advocates.
The broad impact of AI data centers
Though coal is considered the dirtiest fossil fuel, natural gas comes with its own environmental harms. Burning natural gas emits carbon dioxide, and, when it leaks out of pipes before it’s burned, it emits methane, an especially potent greenhouse gas. In 2022, burning natural gas for energy accounted for 35% of the country’s total energy-related CO2 emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Scientists and environmental experts have urged the U.S. to reduce its reliance on natural gas, even as demand for it has grown in recent years. The increasing use of AI, which will require new energy sources, is only adding to that demand.
The surge in AI also poses a risk to the energy grid, and could raise Americans’ energy bills. Entergy’s planned fossil fuel expansion for Meta’s Louisiana data center could put local utility customers at risk of absorbing “hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars, of additional costs,” one energy consultant told Business Insider.
AI requires massive amounts of energy to operate, and if those energy demands outstrip what the grid can provide, residents will likely see both higher energy costs and more risks of outages. Utility customers across the country have already seen these impacts, as well as increased demands on the grid. In Oregon, residential rates have increased 50% in the past five years in part because the state is the fifth largest market for data centers in the nation.
Some say the lack of renewable energy exacerbates this issue. Entergy Louisiana has “almost no renewable power in its system,” per a recent Floodlight article; at the same time, financial consulting firms have projected a 90% increase on electricity prices for Entergy customers between 2018 and 2030.
The Trump administration has also hampered renewable energy by slashing funding and shutting down projects under development, even though experts say wind and solar are the cheapest and fastest sources of new energy to deploy. (Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration—part of a wave of Big Tech companies appealing to the administration—and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hosted an inauguration party for the president.)
Senator Whitehouse recently introduced legislation, called the Clean Cloud Act, that would set emissions performance standards for data centers, and also use their revenue to help consumers save on utility bills.
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