Photo by Conny Schneider on Unsplash
Artificial intelligence is being promoted as a technology that could transform nearly every aspect of modern life—from healthcare and education to manufacturing and finance. But whether AI ultimately delivers benefits significant enough to justify the resources it consumes remains an open question.
What is already clear is that powering it requires enormous amounts of electricity.
Behind every AI-powered tool are data centers filled with energy-intensive computer servers operating around the clock. As technology companies race to develop increasingly powerful AI systems, demand for these facilities—and the electricity required to run them—is soaring.
According to the latest Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory analysis, data centers could account for between 9.5% and 15.3% of all U.S. electricity consumption by 2030.
That’s not simply a technology story. It’s an energy policy question with potentially serious consequences for utility customers, public health and the environment.
What Are We Powering—and at What Cost?
AI applications require significant computing power, particularly as companies build and operate increasingly complex models. Large data centers can require massive amounts of electricity concentrated in a single location, creating new challenges for a grid that is already struggling to keep pace with rising demand.
That raises an important question: Should residents be asked to shoulder the costs and environmental consequences of building an energy system capable of supporting virtually unlimited growth in AI?
New Jersey should not assume that every proposed data center represents economic development worth pursuing. Policymakers need to weigh promised jobs, tax revenue and investment against the infrastructure costs, electricity demand, water consumption, pollution and other impacts these facilities can impose on surrounding communities.
More AI Cannot Mean More Fossil Fuels
Perhaps the greatest risk is allowing the AI boom to become a new justification for decades of fossil fuel dependence.
A 2026 Environmental Integrity Project analysis identified at least 74 proposed natural gas-fired power plants across the country dedicated to powering data centers. If all are built and operate at their estimated potential, the analysis found they could release up to 662 million tons of greenhouse gas pollution annually—the equivalent of the annual emissions of more than 140 million cars and trucks.
That’s an extraordinary potential environmental cost to accommodate the growth of one industry.
New Jersey must insist that new electricity demand is met with cleaner resources, including renewable energy, battery storage, energy efficiency and a modernized grid—not a new generation of fossil fuel infrastructure that could operate for decades.
New Jersey Should Set the Terms
The question isn’t simply whether AI and data centers are coming. It’s whether states will allow technology companies to dictate the terms of that growth.
New Jersey has already taken steps to ensure large new energy users contribute appropriately to the infrastructure they require. But protecting ratepayers is only part of the equation. The state also needs stronger requirements to ensure that new infrastructure built to serve data centers is clean.
Legislation such as S680/A1170 would require proposed AI data centers to submit energy usage plans and require their electricity to come from new clean energy sources. Those protections are especially important as data center demand grows.
And because New Jersey is part of the regional PJM electric grid, action here must be accompanied by cooperation with other PJM states. Otherwise, efforts to require cleaner energy in New Jersey could be undermined by new fossil fuel generation elsewhere on the interconnected grid.
Innovation Should Have to Prove Its Value
AI may ultimately produce important benefits. But technological innovation should not automatically take precedence over clean air, clean water, affordable electricity or a stable climate.
If AI companies require enormous amounts of new electricity and infrastructure to operate, they should be expected to demonstrate that their projects provide meaningful benefits—and to bring new clean energy online and pay their fair share of the infrastructure required to support them.
New Jersey’s goal shouldn’t be to accommodate data center growth at any cost. It should be to determine whether that growth actually benefits New Jersey and, when it does, ensure it doesn’t come at the expense of the health, finances and environment of the people who already live here.
