BTM data centers’ looming methane surge

Behind-the-meter natural gas generation for data centers creates a significant, often overlooked, climate risk due to methane emissions. Olya Irzak, founder and CEO of Frost Methane, highlights that these emissions originate from wellhead extraction, midstream gathering, facility leaks, and engine methane slip. With 50 gigawatts of new capacity planned, this infrastructure could add approximately 380 megatons of CO2e to U.S. emissions, doubling the warming impact compared to CO2 combustion alone. While speed to power is the primary driver for data center developers, cost-effective mitigation strategies—such as sourcing from certified low-leak producers, utilizing turbines instead of reciprocating engines, and implementing rigorous leak detection—are readily available. These interventions would add less than one percent to total project costs while preventing nearly half of the projected emissions, offering a critical lever for decarbonizing the rapidly expanding data center sector.