AI’s Need for Coal

A 10kg (approx. 22lb) bag of coal could power 1 approximately:

  • 10,000 searches on an AI chatbot like ChatGPT. 2
  • 200 emails on an AI chatbot like ChatGPT, each of 100-words. 3

Coal was being phased out before AI boomed

Coal power plants currently produce about a third of global electricity 4. Coal is the most carbon-intensive of all fossil fuels however, which has prompted the gradual phasing out of coal for other electricity sources, ideally renewable ones 5. AI has directly interrupted the phasing out of coal power plants:

  • The energy demand of the United States is predicted to exceed the nation’s power supply in the next few years alone, with data centres being a primary driver of this demand 6.
  • To meet AI-driven energy demands, coal power plants that were planned to shut down in pursuit of clean energy goals prolonged their deadlines to phase out coal 7.

AI’s use of coal around the world

Electricity-hungry AI data centres are keeping coal plants open in:

  • United States: Virginia Electric and Power Company, which supplies the world’s largest concentration of AI data centers, will continue to rely on coal until at least 2039. 8 Similarly, Georgia Power is expected to depend on coal until at least 2035, in the context of increasing power demands from data centers. 9
  • India: Maharashtra, home to India’s largest concentration of data centers, 10 generated 77% of its electricity from coal in the 2024/25 period 11.
  • China: In 2022, 70% of the electricity powering China’s data centers was generated from coal, according to Liu Shiping, director of the fintech research center at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 12
  • Indonesia: 94 data center operators utilize electricity from the state power company PLN, 13 which generated 63% of its electricity from coal in 2022 14.

How harmful is coal?

Coal is a particularly harmful fossil fuel for a few reasons:

  1. Human Health:
    • The burning of fossil fuels emits air pollutants (e.g., sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter) that are proven to cause heart attacks, lung cancer, and asthma, even in small quantities 15.
    • Particulate matter emitted as a result of burning coal specifically is associated with a risk of mortality that is more than double that of other particulate matter 16. 460,000 deaths between 1999 and 2020 are traced to air pollution emitted from coal power plants 16.
    • Communities near coal plants are especially burdened by health effects. In fact, 400 hospitalizations were avoided yearly in Kentucky when four coal-fired power plants either switched their energy source to natural gas or installed scrubbers that reduce sulfur dioxide emissions 17.
  2. Climate Change:
    • Coal is chemically composed of mostly carbon, which when burned produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that traps heat and warms the earth 18.
    • A fifth of all global greenhouse gas emissions are generated by coal power plants, making coal a substantial contributor to climate change 4.
    • Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide cause the climate change effects of drought, wildfires, sea ice melting and sea level rise, flooding, extreme weather and natural disasters, and species loss among other effects 19.
  3. The Immediate Environment:
    • Coal extraction via surface mining (the act of removing soil and rock to excavate coal deposits) destroys forests and wildlife. It also causes erosion that carries topsoil into waterways and kills aquatic life 20.
    • Mountaintop mining entails exploding the tops of mountains, causing rock and soil to runoff into river valleys. This closes off sources of freshwater, which are already scarce 20.
    • River valleys that fill with runoff from coal mining have increased salinity, metal concentrations, and most importantly, are highly acidic to the point of being able to burn human skin. This water pollution is toxic to wildlife and presents health risks to nearby communities 20.

References

  1. Fu, C., Anantharaman, R., Jordal, K., & Gundersen, T. (2015). Thermal efficiency of coal-fired power plants: From theoretical to practical assessments. Energy Conversion and Management, 105, 530–544. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2015.08.019 ↩

  2. Goldman Sachs. (2024, April 28). AI, data centers and the coming US power demand surge. https://www.goldmansachs.com/pdfs/insights/pages/generational-growth-ai-data-centers-and-the-coming-us-power-surge/report.pdf ↩

  3. Verma, P., & Tan, S. (2024, September 18). A bottle of water per email: The hidden environmental costs of using AI chatbots. Washington Post. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/a-bottle-of-water-per-email-the-hidden-environmental-costs-of-using-ai-chatbots/ar-AA1qLlv5 ↩

  4. Birol, F., & Malpass, D. (2021, October 8). It’s critical to tackle coal emissions. The International Energy Agency. https://www.iea.org/commentaries/it-s-critical-to-tackle-coal-emissions ↩ ↩2

  5. Greenfield, C. (2024, March 26). Coal. International Energy Organization. https://www.iea.org/energy-system/fossil-fuels/coal ↩

  6. Rouch, M., Denman, A., Hanbury, P., Renno, P., & Gray, E. (2024, October). Utilities Must Reinvent Themselves to Harness the AI-Driven Data Center Boom. Bain & Company. https://www.bain.com/insights/utilities-must-reinvent-themselves-to-harness-the-ai-driven-data-center-boom/ ↩

  7. Halper, E. (2024, October 12). A utility promised to stop burning coal. Then Google and Meta came to town. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/08/google-meta-omaha-data-centers/ ↩

  8. Virginia Electric and Power Company. (2024). Integrated resource plan. Virginia Electric and Power Company. https://www.dominionenergy.com/-/media/pdfs/global/company/IRP/2024-IRP-w_o-Appendices.pdf ↩

  9. Georgia Power. (2025). 2025 Integrated Resource Plan. Georgia Power. https://www.georgiapower.com/content/dam/georgia-power/pdfs/company-pdfs/2025-Integrated-Resource-Plan.pdf ↩

  10. Statista Research Department. (2025). India: Number of data centers by region 2025. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1480351/india-number-of-data-centers-by-region/ ↩

  11. NITI Aayog (Energy Team) & Vasudha Foundation. (2025). India Climate & Energy Dashboard: Maharashtra State Profile. NITI Aayog. https://iced.niti.gov.in/state-report/maharashtra ↩

  12. 市场资讯. (2022, March 1). 解读｜“东数西算”工程不只是把东部数据拿到西部运算. sina 新浪财经. https://finance.sina.com.cn/china/gncj/2022-03-01/doc-imcwiwss3492959.shtml ↩

  13. PLN. (2023, February 1). Dukung Pengembangan Data, PLN Siap Pasok Kebutuhan Listrik EBT ke Pusat Data di Seluruh Indonesia. https://web.pln.co.id/media/siaran-pers/2023/02/dukung-pengembangan-data-pln-siap-pasok-kebutuhan-listrik-ebt-ke-pusat-data-di-seluruh-indonesia ↩

  14. PT PLN (Persero). (2022). LAPORAN TAHUNAN (Annual Report) 2022. PLN. https://web.pln.co.id/statics/uploads/2023/06/Laporan-Tahunan-2022_Final_3005_Med-Res.pdf ↩

  15. U.S. EPA (2024, December 12). Research on health effects from air pollution. https://www.epa.gov/air-research/research-health-effects-air-pollution ↩

  16. Wittenberg, A. (2023, November 28). Coal Power Kills a ‘Staggering’ Number of Americans. Scientific American. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/coal-power-kills-a-staggering-number-of-americans/ ↩ ↩2

  17. Reynolds, S. (2020, April 21). Drop in coal power plant emissions associated with asthma improvements. National Institute of Health. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/drop-coal-power-plant-emissions-associated-asthma-improvements ↩

  18. Coal Power Impacts. (2019, July 9). Union of Concerned Scientists. https://www.ucs.org/resources/coal-power-impacts ↩

  19. The Effects of Climate Change. (n.d.). NASA. https://science.nasa.gov/climate-change/effects/ ↩

  20. Montgomery, E., & English, A. (2024, August 23). How coal mining harms the environment. Environment America. https://environmentamerica.org/center/articles/how-coal-mining-harms-the-environment/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3