A developer seeking to build up to 23GW of behind-the-meter gas generation has sought to use a "presidential exemption" process to avoid air permitting rules at 11 proposed data centers in Texas, Illinois and Montana.
Thunderhead Energy Solutions sent those requests to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this spring, hoping to take advantage of an open-ended invitation for exemptions set up under President Donald Trump. Authorizing the air permitting exemptions would avoid "critical delays" in the permitting process, the company said, and allow a rapid build-out of data centers that would be "essential" to national security and include "classified government workloads".
"The standard permitting process would prevent timely deployment of urgently needed computing capacity," Thunderhead founder Brennan Zaunbrecher wrote in a 28 March email obtained this week through a public records request.
The 11 exemption requests — the status of which remains unclear — come at a time when the Trump administration has made fast-tracking power generation for data centers one of its top priorities. Trump administration officials have downplayed worries about climate change, while prioritizing development of power plants it hopes will allow the US to be dominant in the development of artificial intelligence data centers.
"The real existential threat right now is not a degree of climate change," US interior secretary Doug Burgum said on Wednesday at the Gastech conference in Milan. "It's the fact that we could lose the arms rate if we don't have enough power."
Thunderhead in its emails made near-identical exemption requests for a total of 23GW of behind-the-meter generation, supplying power to on-site facilities rather than to the grid, according to emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The size of the plants — all of which would use simple-cycle gas generators — range from 250MW for facilities in Illinois to facilities in Texas with 5,000MW of generation. Last week, a data center developer said it signed a non-binding term sheet with Thunderhead to install 250MW of gas generation at a data center in Texas located in the Permian basin.
Trump has already granted presidential exemptions for dozens of coal-fired power plants and chemical plants, drawing lawsuits from environmentalists. But it is unclear if Trump has acted on the requests from Thunderhead, which seeks sweeping two-year exemptions from key permitting requirements under the Clean Air Act.
EPA said it "played no role" in reviewing the exemption requests, and that its only involvement was to forward requests to the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Thunderhead's requests are well beyond what is allowed under a presidential exemption, environmentalists say. The exemptions at issue are allowed under section 112 of the Clean Air Act, which only covers federal limits on toxic air pollutants like benzene, and only when the president finds there are national security interests and emissions technology is not available. Thunderhead, in contrast, is seeking exemptions from nearly all key air permits, including those handled by states that limit conventional air pollutants such as particulate matter.
Sierra Club senior attorney Andrea Issod said Thunderhead's requests are "totally outside" what could be allowed under the Clean Air Act. She said it would be particularly harmful if they are approved because the proposed gas plants are small and relatively inefficient, resulting in comparatively higher emissions than traditional gas plants.
"This administration put up a website to encourage polluters to seek exemptions from these lifesaving air pollution standards," Issod said. "So what do you get when you get that? You get opportunists saying, 'They asked me for it, so I'm going to ask for whatever I want.'"
Thunderhead did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The company has said it can deliver reliable power to data centers in 18-24 months, compared to more than five years for traditional grid connections.
Data center developers have increasingly looked to small gas turbines as a source of "temporary" power to avoid years-long waits for grid connections. Artificial intelligence company xAI, owned by tech executive Elon Musk, has added at least 15 gas turbines at a data center in Memphis, Tennessee. Environmentalists say the turbines were installed without a required air permit. They believe there are 35 gas turbines at the site, some of them operating continuously.
