Andy Burnham: no new gas power stations for data centres

PETITION TEXT:

Andy Burnham,

We call on you to rule out permission for any new data centre that plans to build its own gas-fired power station.

Burning more gas to power Big Tech’s data centres would blast millions of tonnes of extra CO2 into our air, and wreck progress towards reducing carbon emissions. It is the opposite of a serious plan for cooling down our country.

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Plans for two new data centres UK will pump out more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire UK operations of ExxonMobil. Both plan to build their own gas power stations. Please sign our petition telling Andy Burnham to rule it out.

Foxglove analysis, reported by the Guardian, has found that two planned data centres will produce more than 4.5m tonnes of carbon emissions a year between them. 

The reason is that the developers of both sites – Wapseys Wood in Buckinghamshire and Quest Park in Bedfordshire – plan to build their own private gas-fired power stations, on site.

And they are not unusual. There are currently around 315 data centres queuing to connect to the UK’s electricity grid, representing around 73GW of demand. That’s almost twice the amount of electricity the whole country uses at peak times in winter – the grid cannot take it. So building your own gas plant is fast becoming Big Tech’s workaround of choice.

There is simply no world in which this is compatible with a serious plan for reaching net zero by 2050. You can either have a plan for cooling down our country and cutting our use of dirty and dangerous gas, or you can have gigantic new gas power stations for data centres. You cannot have both.

Both Wapseys Wood and Quest Park are among the first data centres being treated as Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects. That means the final decision is taken by a government minister.

Please add your name and tell the Prime Minister: no data centre should be allowed to build its own gas power station.