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A spike in demand for electricity from tech companies competing in the artificial intelligence race is upending forecasts for natural gas-fired power in the U.S., as utilities reconsider it as a major new power source. That is not what many scientists and climate activists envisioned in the fight against climate change. And it is endangering progress on the greenhouse gas-reduction goals that scientists say are necessary to manage the damage from burning fossil fuels that warms the planet. Across the nation, tech companies are snapping up real estate and seeking new power projects to feed their energy-hungry operations. In some cases, Big Tech is building climate-friendlier projects like solar, wind, geothermal or battery storage. But industry decision-makers are also turning to natural gas for what they say is a cheap and reliable source of power, raising the prospect that gas-fired power will play a bigger role and for a longer period of time than even they had anticipated. Gas is growing faster now and in the medium term than ever before, said Corianna Mah, a power and renewables analyst at data analytics firm Enverus. Before the spike in electricity demand last year, many in the industry had assumed that there would be few new gas plants and that the nation’s fleet would gradually retire in favor of a grid powered by wind, solar, geothermal, batteries and possibly the next generation of nuclear power sources that don’t emit the planet-warming greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. For many countries, that ramp down is happening as they work toward the goal of slashing their emissions to zero or at least, net zero by 2050, which scientists say could help the world avoid the worst effects of climate change. In the U.S., the electric power sector is the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to government figures. And the construction of every new natural gas plant built to last for decades is a setback for climate goals, said John Quigley, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy. At a top level, we will not get to net zero by 2050 if we are building new gas plants. Period, Quigley said. Burning natural gas emits carbon dioxide, and before that, when it escapes from wellheads or pipelines in its unburned form, it’s an even more potent greenhouse gas called methane. Quigley and others say there is enough solar, wind and battery storage projects on the drawing board to satisfy growing electricity demand. But, they say, utilities and grid operators lack the will to abandon natural gas. Enverus now projects the next five years will bring roughly 46 gigawatts of gas-fired power online. That compares to 39 gigawatts in the past five years, it said. Announcements last year alone include: two 705-megawatt plants by Evergy in Kansas; Entergy’s 2,300-megawatt plant to serve Metas $10 billion AI data center in northern Louisiana, a pair of new plants in Texas and another in Mississippi; a 1,450-megawatt plant by the Tennessee Valley Authority; a 1,400 megawatt Duke Energy project in North Carolina; and Georgia Power’s plans for three oil or gas units with a capacity of up to 1,300 megawatts. And thats not all. Calpine said it’s exploring new gas-fired capacity in the congested mid-Atlantic region, especially Pennsylvania and Ohio, where analysts say the grid operator is trying to fast-track new gas-fired power plants into service. In Pennsylvania, the former Homer City coal-fired power plant is being transformed into a massive gas-fired station that’s expected to supply a data center and got a $5 million state grant to do it. On top of the artificial intelligence boom, the frenzy for new electricity is fueled by cryptomining, the broader electrification of society and a bipartisan push to bring manufacturing back to the U.S. It is coinciding with the closure of coal plants and aging nuclear plants, unable to compete with cheaper gas, solar and wind. Across the U.S., gas pipeline operators are exuberant about the new demand and are reporting strong interest in extending their lines. Chris Kalnin, the CEO of BKV, the largest natural-gas producer in the Barnett Shale gas reservoir in Texas, said the trend there is toward gas plants being built next to data centers in a booming data center corridor in metropolitan Dallas. Data center developers there are in an arms race to secure power, Kalnin said. Data center guys are trying to source power and trying to get to market with their data centers as fast as possible,” Kalnin said. The key to signing up cloud-computing customers “is getting your facility online quickly and getting your facility online quickly requires you to have power and dependable power and a cost-efficient power source. Rob Jennings of the American Petroleum Institute, said the sudden growth in actual and forecast electricity demand has put a premium on power sources that can be built fast and cheaply and are reliable. That means natural gas is once again attractive to investors over solar and wind, he said. In the near term, the reality has dawned on most that it has to be gas, Jennings said. Industry officials say they strive to deliver electricity that is clean, reliable and affordable. For instance, some new gas plants are replacing higher-pollution coal-fired plants, some are designed to run only at times of high demand, some are paired with battery storage or a wind farm nearby and some are designed with carbon-capture technology or to run on a hydrogen blend, said Alex Bond of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents U.S. investor-owned electric companies. At the very least, building gas-fired capacity will have high-level political support. In his remarks to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month, President Donald Trump declared that he’d issue emergency declarations to get coal – and gas-plants built to make the U.S. a superpower of manufacturing, cryptomining and artificial intelligence. But Amanda Levin of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the U.S. must take big steps by 2035 to reduce its reliance on gas. That means slashing a fleet of roughly 1,500 gas plants down to about 100 if the U.S. is to meet strong climate commitments and preserve a chance of addressing climate change, she said. Still, she said there are reasons to be optimistic that gas plant projects on the drawing board wont get built. In recent weeks, Chinese tech startup Deepseek released a new AI model that it boasted was on par with similar models fro U.S. companies and at a fraction of the cost calling into question the need for a massive expansion of energy-hungry data centers. And some analysts believe utilities overestimate the electricity theyll need, essentially by double- or triple-counting data center proposals when firms express interest in multiple locations but only build in one. Besides, Levin said, data center operators are getting better at energy efficiency, particularly in how they cool their servers. Even if all the gas plants are built, they may not get used, she said. There are a lot of reasons, Levin said, “for why we might not actually see all of this (demand) materialize. Marc Levy, Associated Press The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
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On Valentines Day 2025, heavy rains started to fall in parts of rural Appalachia. Over the course of a few days, residents in eastern Kentucky watched as river levels rose and surpassed flood levels. Emergency teams conducted over 1,000 water rescues. Hundreds, if not thousands of people were displaced from homes, and entire business districts filled with mud. For some, it was the third time in just four years that their homes had flooded, and the process of disposing of destroyed furniture, cleaning out the muck and starting anew is beginning again. Historic floods wiped out businesses and homes in eastern Kentucky in February 2021, July 2022 and now February 2025. An even greater scale of destruction hit eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in September 2024, when Hurricane Helenes rainfall and flooding decimated towns and washed out parts of major highways. Each of these events was considered to be a thousand-year flood, with a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in a given year. Yet theyre happening more often. The floods have highlighted the resilience of local people to work together for collective survival in rural Appalachia. But they have also exposed the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains with poor emergency warning systems. As short-term cleanup leads to long-term recovery efforts, residents can face daunting barriers that leave many facing the same flood risks over and over again. Exposing a housing crisis For the past nine years, I have been conducting research on rural health and poverty in Appalachia. Its a complex region often painted in broad brushstrokes that miss the geographic, socioeconomic and ideological diversity it holds. Appalachia is home to a vibrant culture, a fierce sense of pride and a strong sense of love. But it is also marked by the omnipresent backdrop of a declining coal industry. There is considerable local inequality that is often overlooked in a region portrayed as one-dimensional. Poverty levels are indeed high. In Perry County, Kentucky, where one of eastern Kentuckys larger cities, Hazard, is located, nearly 30% of the population lives under the federal poverty line. But the average income of the top 1% of workers in Perry County is nearly US$470,000 17 times more than the average income of the remaining 99%. This income and wealth inequality translates to unequal land ownership much of eastern Kentuckys most desirable land remains in the hands of corporations and families with great generational wealth. When I first moved to eastern Kentucky in 2016, I was struck by the grave lack of affordable, quality housing. I met families paying $200-$300 a month for a small plot to put a mobile home. Others lived in found housing often-distressed properties owned by family members. They had no lease, no equity and no insurance. They had a place to lay ones head but lacked long-term stability in the event of disagreement or disaster. This reality was rarely acknowledged by local and state governments. Eastern Kentuckys 2021 and 2022 floods turned this into a full-blown housing crisis, with 9,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the 2022 flood alone. There was no empty housing or empty places for housing, one resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me. It just was complete disaster because people just didnt have a place to go. Most homeowners did not have flood insurance to assist with rebuilding costs. While many applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance, the amounts they received often did not go far. The maximum aid for temporary housing assistance and repairs is $42,500, plus up to an additional $42,500 for other needs related to the disaster. The federal government often provides more aid for rebuilding through block grants directed to local and state governments, but that money requires congressional approval and can take months to years to arrive. Local community coalitions and organizations stepped in to fill these gaps, but they did not necessarily have sufficient donations or resources to help such large numbers of displaced people. With a dearth of affordable rentals pre-flood, renters who lost their homes had no place to go. And those living in found housing that was destroyed were not eligible for federal support or rebuilding. The sheer level of devastation also posed challenges. One health care professional told me: In Appalachia, the way it usually works is if you lose your house or something happens, then you go stay with your brother or your mom or your cousin. But everybodys mom and brother and cousin also lost their house. There was nowhere to stay. From her point of view, our homelessness just skyrocketed. The cost of land social and economic After the 2022 flood, the Kentucky Department for Local Government earmarked almost $300 million of federal funding to build new, flood-resilient homes in eastern Kentucky. Yet the question of where to build remained. As another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me, You can give us all the money you want; we dont have any place to build the house. It has always been costly and time-intensive to develop land in Appalachia. Available higher ground tends to be located on former strip mines, and these reclaimed lands require careful geotechnical surveying and sometimes structural reinforcements. If these areas are remote, the costs of running electric, water and other infrastructure services can also be prohibitive. For this reason, for-profit developers have largely avoided many counties in the region. The head of a nonprofit agency explained to me that, because of this, The markets have broken. We have no [housing] market. There is also some risk involved in attempting to build homes on new land that has not previously been developed. A local government could pay for undeveloped land to be surveyed and prepared for development, with the prospect of reimbursement by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development if housing is successfully built. But if, after the work to prepare the land, it is still too cost-prohibitive to build a profitable house there, the local government would not receive any reimbursement. Some counties have found success clearing land for large developments on former strip mine sites. But these former coal mining areas can be considerable distances from towns. Without robust public transportation systems, these distances are especially prohibitive for residents who lack reliable personal transportation. Another barrier is the high prices that both individual and corporate landowners are asking for properties on higher ground. The scarcity of desirable land available for sale, combined with increasingly urgent demand, has led to prices unaffordable for most. Another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts explained: If you paid $5,000 for 30 acres 40 years ago, why wont you sell that for $100,000? Nope, [they want] $1 million. That makes it increasingly difficult for both individuals and housing developers to purchase land and build. One reason for this scarcity is the amount of land that is still owned by outside corporate interests. For example, Kentucky River Properties, formerly Kentucky River Coal Corporation, owns over 270,000 acres across seven counties in the region. While this landholding company leases land to coal, timber and gas companies, it and others like it rarely permit residential development. But not all unused land is owned by corporations. Some of this land is owned by families with deep roots in the region. Peoples attachment to a place often makes them want to stay in their communities, even after disasters. But it can also limit the amount of land available for rebuilding. People are often hesitant to sell land that holds deep significance for their families, even if they are not living there themselves. One health care professional expressed feeling torn between selling or keeping their own family property after the 2022 flood: We have a significant amount of property on top of a mountain. I wouldnt want to sell it because my papa came from nothing. His generation thought owning land was the greatest thing. And for him to provide his children and his grandchildren and their great-grandchildren a plot of land that he worked and sweat and ultimately died to give us people want to hold onto that. She recognized that land was in great demand but couldnt bring herself to sell what she owned. In cases like hers, higher grounds are owned locally but still remain unused. Moving toward higher ground, slowly Two years after the 2022 flood, major government funding for rebuilding still has not resulted in a significant number of homes. The state has planned seven communities on higher ground in eastern Kentucky that aim to house 665 new homes. As of early 2025, 14 houses had been completed. Progress on providing housing on higher ground is slow, and the need is great. In the meantime, when I conducted interviews during the summer and fall of 2024, many of the mobile home communities that were decimated in the 2022 flood had begun to fill back up. These were flood-risk areas, but there was simply no other place to go. Last week, I watched on Facebook a friends live video footage showing the waters creeping up the sides of the mobile homes in one of those very communities that had flooded in 2022. Another of my friends mused: I dont know who constructed all this, but they did an unjustly favor by not thinking how close these towns was to the river. Cant anyone in Frankfort help us, or has it gone too far? With hundreds more people now displaced by the most recent flood, the need for homes on higher grounds has only expanded, and the wait continues. Kristina P. Brant is an assistant professor of rural sociology at Penn State. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Some good news for all the tired parents out there: Having and raising kids may unexpectedly boost your brain and protect your mind from aging over the long run, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research from Rutgers Health and Yale University found parents developed higher brain-wide functional connectivity as they aged, especially in networks associated with movement and sensation, if they had more children. Those same networks typically show lower functional connectivity associated with greater age, meaning parenthood may protect against “functional brain aging.” The study findings apply to both moms and dads, which suggests the benefits come from parenthood caregiving, rather than pregnancy alone. This study looked at data from 37,000 adults including 19,964 females and 17,607 males from the UK Biobank, using the largest population-based neuroimaging data set to date to investigate the link between the number of children a parent had and age of brain function. It sheds new light on how adult human brains develop over the course of a lifespan, and is encouraging news for women who temporarily suffer from “Mommy brain,” or greater forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating during and after pregnancy. Overall, these results suggest that parenthood may be neuroprotective in later life, and are consistent with preliminary findings of previous studies that show younger-looking brain structures in animal parents. Check out the full study here.
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