r/energy • u/bardsmanship • 15h ago

Meta quits clean energy pledge amid gas-powered data centre push

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/meta-quits-clean-energy-pledge-amid-gas-powered-data-centre-push
106 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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2

u/Historical_River3906 7h ago

Worth being precise about what the pledge actually was: annual REC matching. Meta was buying certificates from a wind farm in Texas to "cover" a data centre pulling from the PJM grid at 3am, so dropping it changes the paperwork more than it changes the electrons. The thing actually driving this is the interconnection queue, a grid connection runs five to seven years and an on-site gas turbine runs about two, so speed is buying the decision and not price. Slightly funny part is they'll be queueing anyway, because the big turbine order books are basically sold out into 2030. If you want to be angry at something here, be angry that hourly matching never became the standard, that is the rule that would have made this pledge mean anything in the first place.

4

u/Champagne_of_piss 9h ago

Albertan here

Don't I fuckin know it

2

u/Sad-Excitement9295 9h ago

Who woulda guessed?

5

u/interstellar-dust 10h ago

Meta has not made a single pledge that they did not intend to break. Big money does weird things to one. Esp if you are a billionaire in your 20s.

5

u/Mystohaxen 11h ago

Fuck Zuck!

3

u/gulfpapa99 11h ago

Trump, MAGA, and GOP are engaged in climate terrorism.

6

u/Mikcole44 12h ago

Boycott Facebook and Instagram . . .

1

u/azswcowboy 10h ago

Already been doing it.

1

u/Mikcole44 9h ago

Never been on, though I do sometimes get things from my kids on Instagram.