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Innovative Solutions Like This Plan To Provide Power For Data Centres Will Drive Natural Gas Demand For Decades

Published

7 months ago

6 minute read

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By David Blackmon

The dramatic expansion of the number and scale of planned datacenter projects across the United States has generated a great deal of news over the last year. The central question in many of those stories centers around the power needs of these projects, and how the power will be generated.

Early developers hyped their preference to use electricity generated by wind and/or solar to power their projects but found the 99.999% datacenter uptime requirements can’t be met by these intermittent power sources, even when backed up by stationary batteries.

With new nuclear projects facing permitting times of 10-15 years and coal being crowded out by emissions regulations, more recent speculation has centered heavily on natural gas as being the fuel of choice for developers whose projects won’t be interconnected into a regional power grid. Natural gas generation is cheaper and faster to build than nuclear, and, while anti-fossil fuel activists complain that gas still comes with emissions, it presents a far cleaner alternative to coal.

In Wyoming, a group of three companies said this week they’ve agreed to a joint project that also satisfies the emissions critics. In a release dated May 6, data center developer Prometheus Hyperscale, Wyoming’s largest gas producer PureWest Energy, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) developer Frontier Carbon Solutions, LLC, rolled out what they call “a first-of-its-kind partnership focused on driving innovation and sustainability while contributing to Wyoming’s long-term economic growth.”

In simple terms, the plan goes like this:

  • Prometheus will permit and build the datacenter;
  • PureWest will produce and supply the natural gas to a nearby power plant operated by an independent power provider from its Wyoming production portfolio, which it boasts maintains “industry leading emissions performance with a rigorous Measurement, Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MMRV) program and ISO 14067 verification;”
  • Frontier will capture biogenic carbon dioxide from across the Mountain West and sequester it in underground formations in Southwestern Wyoming; and
  • Frontier will sell traceable carbon removal credits to Prometheus.

Through entering into these various agreements, a datacenter sporting a net-zero emissions profile is created. This not only embellishes the clean energy scorecards for the three companies involved in the partnership, but also for customers who purchase the computing power from the datacenter, as well as the operators of processing plants and transportation systems which move both the natural gas and the carbon dioxide.

“PureWest’s goal to be the region’s energy supplier of choice is rooted in innovation and cutting-edge technology, and today’s exciting announcement reflects our ongoing mission and progress,” said Ty Harrison, President and CFO of PureWest said in a release. “We’re proud to partner with Prometheus and Frontier because this project affirms the critical role that verified low-carbon natural gas will play in sustainably meeting the growing energy needs of AI and its related infrastructure. PureWest is committed to ensuring Wyoming continues to be a leader in delivering scalable energy and decarbonization solutions for the data-driven future of the United States.”

While the joint venture is fairly complex with a number of moving parts, it actually represents a pretty ingenious solution. Once up and running, the partners end up creating a major datacenter with the same carbon footprint as one powered by wind or solar would have, but which will enjoy the added benefit of being able to meet its 99.999% uptime requirements.

But it’s more than that. As the Trump administration’s energy and climate regulatory agenda moves ahead to consolidation, these companies will also avoid running into the reality of so many U.S. wind and solar projects becoming financially unsustainable when the endless stream of rising subsidies their business models require are inevitably reduced or cut off entirely.

As the religious global fervor driven by climate alarmism continues its inevitable fade, producers of American natural gas like PureWest will find themselves presented with a wide array of innovative opportunities like this one. Those opportunities will be driven by customers and potential partners who need the combination of abundance, affordability, reliability, speed of development and low emissions profile that only natural gas is capable of providing.

Anyone who still believes that oil and gas is a dying industry is in for a very rude awakening.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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Canada is failing dismally at our climate goals. We’re also ruining our economy.

Published on November 20, 2025

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From the Fraser Institute

By Annika Segelhorst and Elmira Aliakbari

Short-term climate pledges simply chase deadlines, not results

The annual meeting of the United Nations Conference of the Parties, or COP, which is dedicated to implementing international action on climate change, is now underway in Brazil. Like other signatories to the Paris Agreement, Canada is required to provide a progress update on our pledge to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. After decades of massive government spending and heavy-handed regulations aimed at decarbonizing our economy, we’re far from achieving that goal. It’s time for Canada to move past arbitrary short-term goals and deadlines, and instead focus on more effective ways to support climate objectives.

Since signing the Paris Agreement in 2015, the federal government has introduced dozens of measures intended to reduce Canada’s carbon emissions, including more than $150 billion in “green economy” spending, the national carbon tax, the arbitrary cap on emissions imposed exclusively on the oil and gas sector, stronger energy efficiency requirements for buildings and automobiles, electric vehicle mandates, and stricter methane regulations for the oil and gas industry.

Recent estimates show that achieving the federal government’s target will impose significant costs on Canadians, including 164,000 job losses and a reduction in economic output of 6.2 per cent by 2030 (compared to a scenario where we don’t have these measures in place). For Canadian workers, this means losing $6,700 (each, on average) annually by 2030.

Yet even with all these costly measures, Canada will only achieve 57 per cent of its goal for emissions reductions. Several studies have already confirmed that Canada, despite massive green spending and heavy-handed regulations to decarbonize the economy over the past decade, remains off track to meet its 2030 emission reduction target.

And even if Canada somehow met its costly and stringent emission reduction target, the impact on the Earth’s climate would be minimal. Canada accounts for less than 2 per cent of global emissions, and that share is projected to fall as developing countries consume increasing quantities of energy to support rising living standards. In 2025, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), emerging and developing economies are driving 80 per cent of the growth in global energy demand. Further, IEA projects that fossil fuels will remain foundational to the global energy mix for decades, especially in developing economies. This means that even if Canada were to aggressively pursue short-term emission reductions and all the economic costs it would imposes on Canadians, the overall climate results would be negligible.

Rather than focusing on arbitrary deadline-contingent pledges to reduce Canadian emissions, we should shift our focus to think about how we can lower global GHG emissions. A recent study showed that doubling Canada’s production of liquefied natural gas and exporting to Asia to displace an equivalent amount of coal could lower global GHG emissions by about 1.7 per cent or about 630 million tonnes of GHG emissions. For reference, that’s the equivalent to nearly 90 per cent of Canada’s annual GHG emissions. This type of approach reflects Canada’s existing strength as an energy producer and would address the fastest-growing sources of emissions, namely developing countries.

As the 2030 deadline grows closer, even top climate advocates are starting to emphasize a more pragmatic approach to climate action. In a recent memo, Bill Gates warned that unfounded climate pessimism “is causing much of the climate community to focus too much on near-term emissions goals, and it’s diverting resources from the most effective things we should be doing to improve life in a warming world.” Even within the federal ministry of Environment and Climate Change, the tone is shifting. Despite the 2030 emissions goal having been a hallmark of Canadian climate policy in recent years, in a recent interview, Minister Julie Dabrusin declined to affirm that the 2030 targets remain feasible.

Instead of scrambling to satisfy short-term national emissions limits, governments in Canada should prioritize strategies that will reduce global emissions where they’re growing the fastest.

Annika Segelhorst

Junior Economist

Elmira Aliakbari

Elmira Aliakbari

Director, Natural Resource Studies, Fraser Institute
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Artificial Intelligence

Lawsuit Claims Google Secretly Used Gemini AI to Scan Private Gmail and Chat Data

Published on November 19, 2025

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By Ken Macon

Whether the claims are true or not, privacy in Google’s universe has long been less a right than a nostalgic illusion.

When Google flipped a digital switch in October 2025, few users noticed anything unusual.
Gmail loaded as usual, Chat messages zipped across screens, and Meet calls continued without interruption.
Yet, according to a new class action lawsuit, something significant had changed beneath the surface.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
Plaintiffs claim that Google silently activated its artificial intelligence system, Gemini, across its communication platforms, turning private conversations into raw material for machine analysis.
The lawsuit, filed by Thomas Thele and Melo Porter, describes a scenario that reads like a breach of trust.
It accuses Google of enabling Gemini to “access and exploit the entire recorded history of its users’ private communications, including literally every email and attachment sent and received.”
The filing argues that the company’s conduct “violates its users’ reasonable expectations of privacy.”
Until early October, Gemini’s data processing was supposedly available only to those who opted in.
Then, the plaintiffs claim, Google “turned it on for everyone by default,” allowing the system to mine the contents of emails, attachments, and conversations across Gmail, Chat, and Meet.
The complaint points to a particular line in Google’s settings, “When you turn this setting on, you agree,” as misleading, since the feature “had already been switched on.”
This, according to the filing, represents a deliberate misdirection designed to create the illusion of consent where none existed.
There is a certain irony woven through the outrage. For all the noise about privacy, most users long ago accepted the quiet trade that powers Google’s empire.
They search, share, and store their digital lives inside Google’s ecosystem, knowing the company thrives on data.
The lawsuit may sound shocking, but for many, it simply exposes what has been implicit all along: if you live in Google’s world, privacy has already been priced into the convenience.
Thele warns that Gemini’s access could expose “financial information and records, employment information and records, religious affiliations and activities, political affiliations and activities, medical care and records, the identities of his family, friends, and other contacts, social habits and activities, eating habits, shopping habits, exercise habits, [and] the extent to which he is involved in the activities of his children.”
In other words, the system’s reach, if the allegations prove true, could extend into nearly every aspect of a user’s personal life.
The plaintiffs argue that Gemini’s analytical capabilities allow Google to “cross-reference and conduct unlimited analysis toward unmerited, improper, and monetizable insights” about users’ private relationships and behaviors.
The complaint brands the company’s actions as “deceptive and unethical,” claiming Google “surreptitiously turned on this AI tracking ‘feature’ without informing or obtaining the consent of Plaintiffs and Class Members.” Such conduct, it says, is “highly offensive” and “defies social norms.”
The case invokes a formidable set of statutes, including the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, the Stored Communications Act, and California’s constitutional right to privacy.
Google is yet to comment on the filing.
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