Day After Nuclear Power Vow, Meta Announces Largest-ever Datacenter Powered By Fossil Fuels

Richland Parish, an idyllic rural area in northeast Louisiana, USA, is set to host a gigantic new Meta datacenter.

But instead of being powered by one of the on-site nuclear power plants Zuckercorp has previously advocated for, the facility is opting to drive its AI computing workload by burning more fossil fuels. 

The 4 million square foot, $10 billion facility, hailed by Louisiana governor Jeff Landry as "a game changer," is one of the largest private capital investments in the history of the bayou state and will be Meta's largest-ever datacenter, the Facebook parent said.

As the governor's announcement noted, construction on the facility will "continue through 2030" despite groundbreaking planned for this month - in other words, right in line with Meta's plans to ramp up nuclear power for its next generation of AI datacenters as shared in a request for proposals (RFP) yesterday.

Meta has decided to jump the atomic gun with this project by partnering with Entergy instead. The power generation company plans to construct three combined-cycle combustion turbine (CCCT) plants with a total energy generation capacity of 2,262 megawatts. 

CCCT plants burn natural gas, but are configured (and marketed) as less pollutive than traditional natural gas power plants. Along with burning natural gas to spin a gas turbine, combined cycle plants use waste heat to spin a secondary steam turbine, thus creating more watts for their carbon buck. They're still burning natural gas to do so, of course, thus releasing more of the greenhouse gases - an issue Meta has pledged to address (with the purchase of offsets, naturally) by the end of the decade. 

But it could be sustainable!

According to Entergy, the three CCCT plants being constructed for the project, two of which will be housed on-site at the Franklin Farm mega site with one located elsewhere, are being built with the ability to be 30 percent hydrogen co-fired to reduce emissions. Entergy said that the plants will also be able to someday transition to 100 percent hydrogen fired "through future upgrades," though the company didn't answer questions from The Register about the timeline or feasibility of improvements to make that transition. 

SREA is concerned about the large amount of greenhouse gas emissions these three new gas plants will produce, and the unproven nature of the technology Entergy is proposing to install 'in the future' to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions that will be produced by these gas power plants

Per a US Energy Information Administration report on hydrogen co-firing from September, only a handful of natural gas plants in the US have "taken early steps to integrate hydrogen into their fuel streams," with a few of those just reaching the point of testing co-firing. 

"Natural gas is the single-largest source of energy used to generate electricity in the United States, making up 43% of electricity generation in 2023, but hydrogen use is not currently widespread or used regularly in the plants where it has been tested," The EIA said. 

Additionally, as Southern Renewable Energy Association (SREA) regulatory director Whit Cox said in a statement [PDF] his association put out about the project before it was clear that Meta was behind the matter, 2,262 MW of energy from natural gas is a lot. The power that'll be generated at the Richland Parish datacenter is more than three times the power of a plant Entergy is building for a new Amazon datacenter in Mississippi, and more than 20 times the size of Entergy's Bayou Power Station, which was recently canceled due to cost concerns. 

"SREA is concerned about the large amount of greenhouse gas emissions these three new gas plants will produce, and the unproven nature of the technology Entergy is proposing to install 'in the future' to mitigate the greenhouse gas emissions that will be produced by these gas power plants," Cox said. 

Andy Kowalczyk, SREA's transmission director, further explained that hydrogen power isn't necessarily emissions free: Sure, burning it doesn't emit greenhouse gases, but there's the matter of its creation that isn't addressed in Entergy's or Meta's statements on the project. 

"Another question on hydrogen is where it comes from, and if it's grey hydrogen, or even blue hydrogen from gas, what is the point," Kowalczyk told us. 

Both grey and blue hydrogen production involve the use of natural gas processed using steam methane reformation, which releases greenhouse gasses as a byproduct. Blue hydrogen is only different in that it utilizes carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to mitigate CO₂ emissions. Both, otherwise, are a source of pollution. 

"I just don't think it's meaningful to tack on 'hydrogen co-fired' without a performance or fuel standard attached to it," Kowalczyk added. 

Beyond the uncertainty of fuel sources and the capability of Entergy to fulfill its co-firing promises, Union of Concerned Scientists energy analyst Paul Arbaje told us in an email that the co-firing percentage at the Richland Parish datacenter won't actually translate into that much greenhouse gas reduction. 

"The proposed turbines are designed to be able to co-fire up to 30 percent hydrogen before requiring upgrades, which even with low-carbon hydrogen would only yield about an 11 percent reduction in combustion-related carbon dioxide emissions," Arbaje said. "Burning hydrogen can also increase the level of NOx emissions from the plant smokestack, resulting in greater public health harms."

Meta and Entergy's statements about its evaluation of deploying greener power at the site didn't pass the sniff test for SREA either, with Cox telling us the pair didn't seem to comprehensively evaluate options beyond the gas power they decided on. 

Per Entergy's own testimony [PDF] to the Louisiana Public Service Commission (LPSC) on the proposal to build the gas-fired plants, "they only evaluated solar and (very expensive) 18 hour batteries as a 'hypothetical' alternative," Cox said, "rather than considering any wind plus storage option to serve the customer's load at night." 

Cox said that the discussion of storage-only battery solutions is likely just an attempt at deflection "given no utility is currently modeling 18 hour batteries in [integrated resource plans]" for new energy projects. 

We've asked both Meta and Entergy for additional details about its co-firing plans, hydrogen sourcing for energy at the datacenter, and renewable energy considerations, and Entergy didn't respond to those questions. 

Meta, on the other hand, only told us it's "working with Entergy now to identify potential clean and renewable energy projects."

It's worth pointing out that the CCCT plants have yet to be approved, per the LPSC's docket for the project. Entergy said the facilities are expected to come online between 2028 and 2029 - just before when Meta said it wanted to start deploying all those new nuclear reactors. 

Great investment, guys. 

Green guarantees?

"Building with sustainability in mind is important to us," Meta said in its statement about the project. "Together with our energy partner, Entergy, we are adding enough clean and renewable energy to the grid to cover 100% of the electricity use of our Richland Parish Data Center."

That renewable energy will come in the form of at least 1,500 megawatts of new solar generation and storage, but specifics weren't provided, either in statement form or in response to our questions. 

Along with the unspecified solar project, Entergy noted that Meta has also committed to helping it install CCS technology at one of its power plants in Lake Charles, Louisiana, near the state's southern coast, and the pair have "committed to exploring nuclear energy as a future power supply option alongside renewable sources like solar and wind." 

"We are committed to matching our global operations with 100 percent clean and renewable energy," Meta told us when asked about why it's rushing to install natural gas at the site instead of waiting for more nuclear power.

"Our nuclear RFP announcement earlier this week and our partnership with Entergy to explore nuclear options is part of that."

Aside from that, no specific plans were provided. 

• Meta's plan for nuclear datacenter reportedly undone by bees
• Oracle wants to power 1GW datacenter with trio of tiny nuclear reactors
• Amazon's nuclear datacenter dreams stall as watchdog rejects power deal
• Japan looks to nuclear energy to power AI-powered datacenter boom

So, what do the locals think?

Datacenters in rural communities tend to attract lots of detractors. Out east in Virginia, where datacenter construction is reaching a fever pitch, projects have spilled into rural areas where residents were none too happy about the noise, mess and environmental damage such projects inevitably cause, leading to some messy local politics.  

We reached out to a number of local sources to get more information about what Richland Parish residents think about the project, but weren't able to get a response. That said, you don't need to go any further than Meta's own press release on the matter to get a taste for what Richland County residents think: There was some optimism in comments on Meta's announcement, but worry was expressed, too.

A Facebook user identified as Josh Smith on Meta's press release commented to express concerns about the project, citing loss of cropland, stress on local resources as thousands of temporary construction workers pour in to build the facility, and plain-old worry about whether the community would end up being taken advantage of. 

"Seems to be a lot of interest from outside cities and parishes that have never cared about anything in Richland parish before this," Smith said, noting that while the project could do a lot of good for the community, as Meta and Entergy have promised, that's far from certain. 

"There has been a lot of loss for some individuals for the opportunity of growth … at the end of the day it will all be for nothing if Richland Parish and the residents here are not put first," Smith added. 

We sent those concerns to Meta, which told us it is "deeply committed to our datacenter communities, and that includes Richland Parish."

"We're excited to partner with schools and local organizations in Richland Parish on programs and resources that help build skills and increase the use of technology," Meta spokesperson Stacey Yip told us. "On the environmental side … we plan to restore over 1,000 acres of prairie, forest, wetlands, and streams at the Richland Parish Data Center.

"And on the resources side, we are working together with the community to help support the area's growth," Yip added. She also noted that Meta was working on projects in the area to improve water quality and support restoration of cattle grazing fields near a bayou on the other side of the state, which doesn't exactly support the Richland Parish community.

Beyond the environmental issues, there's yet another concern that locals had raised before Meta's involvement in the project was even known: That they could end up being stuck with the bill for new gas-fired power plants and the cost to run them. 

"The region is already very overly reliant on gas plants, which has not only hit consumers' wallets due to gas price spikes, but has also weakened power grid reliability due to severe plant performance issues during extreme weather events," the UCS' Arbaje said.

In addition, Arbaje explained that, according [PDF] to yet more Entergy testimony to the LPSC, Meta would only be paying for a substantial portion of the plants' costs if it signed a second 15-year electricity supply deal. Given Meta's professed plans to go all-in on nuclear energy, that might not happen. 

"We're wary about the very real risk of Meta not re-signing, or even possibly terminating the initial 15-year contract early," Arbaje said. "That would leave Louisianans on the hook for three large and costly power plants, which could quickly become burdensome stranded assets in a future market environment where they will face significant competition from more affordable renewable power."

You might not realize those concerns exist given the fanfare and positive messaging from the Louisiana government, naturally. 

"Meta's investment establishes the region as an anchor in Louisiana's rapidly expanding tech sector, revitalizes one of our state's beautiful rural areas, and creates opportunities for Louisiana workers to fill high-paying jobs of the future," Governor Landry said. 

It'll take a few years to see if those hopes come to fruition, but this is looking suspiciously like a rush job to take advantage of new tax incentives signed into law by Landry in June that provide state and local sales and use tax rebates on the purchase or leasing of datacenter equipment. 

After all, building your largest-ever datacenter in the humid, hot Louisiana countryside isn't exactly a natural choice - especially with Canada beckoning. ®