Google advances AI data center in Texas with gas plant despite climate goals

Google has confirmed a partnership for the Goodnight data center in Texas, next to which a major gas power plant is planned to be built. For a company that has spent years marketing itself as a clean energy leader, this looks like a notable shift under pressure from the AI arms race.

Goodnight Project

This involves a campus in Armstrong County in northern Texas, which Google is developing together with Crusoe Energy. According to Cleanview, in January Crusoe filed documents for construction of a 933 MW gas power plant right on the future campus site. The permit application states that the facility will operate off-grid and supply power to at least two buildings. Satellite imagery cited by the research firm shows that construction is already underway.

The toughest figure in this story is the emissions estimate. If the plant operates in its stated configuration, it could emit up to 4.5 million tons of CO2 per year. For comparison: this is more than the annual emissions of all of San Francisco. However, Google has not confirmed how much electricity it plans to purchase from this plant. A company representative said there is no contract for this Texas plant yet, and negotiations are still ongoing.

Shift in Climate Strategy

The turn is particularly striking against the backdrop of Google's previous promises. Back in 2020, the company announced a goal to achieve net zero and power its operations with carbon-free energy by 2030. Google invested heavily for years in wind, solar, geothermal and nuclear generation, and promoted the idea of 24/7 carbon-free energy. But as AI workloads grew, this framework began to unravel.

In its 2023 report, Google acknowledged that it no longer maintains operational carbon neutrality in its previous formulation, and in subsequent materials began describing climate goals as "moonshots" — ambitions without hard guarantees of results. The numbers also push this narrative. In 2024, Google reported that its greenhouse gas emissions increased 48% compared to 2019, citing data center energy consumption as one reason. According to Cleanview, in 2024 alone Google's data centers consumed 30.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity — roughly twice as much as four years earlier. Against this backdrop, a gas plant without carbon capture technology looks not like an exception, but as a new acceptable part of the energy mix.

Race for Energy

The Texas story matters not just on its own. It demonstrates how quickly AI is turning energy into a strategic bottleneck for Big Tech. Google is increasing capital investments, building new facilities and simultaneously exploring different power sources: from wind and solar to gas, batteries, geothermal and nuclear. Cleanview researchers track 63 Google data center projects across 20 US states, and in many cases it's no longer simply about purchasing power from the grid, but about directly designing a "data center plus own generation" bundle.

Here's what is known about the current scale:

• Google announced $40 billion in investment in Texas cloud and AI infrastructure through 2027
• The new Goodnight campus is just part of this expansion
• For new facilities Google is considering loads on the order of 800–1000 MW
• The company has clean energy projects in the region, including a wind farm partnership
• Similar gas solutions for AI data centers are already being considered by other tech giants

What This Means

The AI boom no longer simply disputes climate policy in theory — it's already rewriting it in concrete infrastructure decisions. If even Google, long regarded as the most disciplined player in clean energy among tech giants, is willing to rely on gas for the speed of launching data centers, then for the entire industry it sends a signal: available power capacity now matters more than previous environmental promises.