WIRED Finds Climate Missing From Much Data Center Opposition as Gas Forecasts Grow

At Climate Week, protesters challenged data-center executives over fracked gas. But outside that room, objections to the facilities more often center on water, power bills and neighborhood pollution, according to a new WIRED account. The contrast is consequential: BloombergNEF projects that growing data-center demand will lean heavily on natural gas and could raise power-sector emissions.

The forecast behind the protest

At a briefing before the Climate Week panel, BloombergNEF analysts described a projected rise in fossil-fuel power demand driven primarily by data centers, WIRED reported. Their analysis puts data centers at more than 5% of global electricity demand by 2035, roughly triple their current demand. BloombergNEF expects new and existing gas plants to meet most of that growth, potentially lifting power-sector emissions by 6% in less than a decade.

That outlook concerns electricity supplied through the power system. WIRED also describes a separate BloombergNEF analysis of 99 proposed gas plants intended to power data centers on-site, outside the grid. Its much larger U.S. emissions estimate depends on all 99 being built; it should not be added to the other projection as though both measured the same set of plants.

The scale of the buildout is uncertain, too. In a U.S. capacity outlook published in July, BloombergNEF raised its 2030 forecast to 118 gigawatts, 52% above its December 2025 estimate. The firm said a growing pipeline of announced projects drove much of the revision, while noting uncertainty about how many facilities will be completed.

In the room, and outside it

The following day, Extinction Rebellion NYC protesters repeatedly interrupted a Climate Week discussion with AI and data-center executives. One objected to continued reliance on fracked gas. The intervention put climate at the center of that exchange, even as WIRED describes water, electricity costs, and local air and noise pollution as more prominent concerns in wider opposition to data centers.

William Lawrence offers a case in point. The Michigan congressional candidate, who helped found the Sunrise Movement, has made opposition to AI and data centers part of his campaign. His platform warns about threats to air, water and quality of life but does not mention climate change. Lawrence told WIRED that constituents do raise climate concerns, though water and energy bills tend to rank higher.

The executives offered a different account of what new facilities could bring. Crusoe cofounder Cully Cavness pointed to local tax benefits, while Emerald AI’s Varun Sivaram argued that data centers could help lower bills and bring more clean energy onto the grid. Those are arguments about what projects might deliver, not a rebuttal to the forecast of gas-fired generation.

The power mix remains unsettled

BloombergNEF’s gas-demand work underscores why the power source matters. A projection covered earlier in September puts U.S. data-center gas consumption at about 18 billion cubic feet per day by 2035. Most of that projected demand would come through grid-connected facilities, rather than plants built on-site, according to the account of the forecast.

Other modeling shows the outcome is not fixed. Rhodium Group found that faster data-center demand growth would make U.S. power-sector emissions in 2035 6% to 13% higher than in its baseline scenarios. Yet emissions would still be lower than in 2024 under those scenarios. Through 2030, Rhodium expects existing gas and coal plants to run more; later, the balance between new gas and cleaner generation depends heavily on market conditions.

That leaves two connected decisions for proposed projects: whether they are built, and what supplies their power. BloombergNEF’s on-site estimate describes the emissions risk if every plant in its sample proceeds. Rhodium’s scenarios show that even when demand grows, the resulting emissions depend on the generation available to meet it. Neither projection makes an individual proposed gas plant inevitable.