Climate Week Put Amazon's Texas Gas Plant on the Agenda. Its Developer Is Already Pitching the Next County.

Climate Week NYC opened on September 20, and data centers are the theme it cannot get away from. On September 22, Democracy Now! broadcast from outside Amazon's New York office with Bill McKibben (350.org, Third Act) and Kavita Sthanumurthy, a former Amazon software engineer with Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. Their target was the gas plant Amazon is financing in Pecos County, Texas, to run its new data center campus north of Fort Stockton: 35 turbines, set against Amazon's public claim to run on renewable energy.

That is the national story. The local one is next door. Four days earlier, Marfa Public Radio reported that Pacifico Energy, the company developing the Pecos County plant, had met Brewster County officials about a similar project: an off-grid data center and natural-gas power plant on a roughly 8,400-acre ranch in the Glass Mountains. If you live in the Big Bend, this post is mostly for you.

What is already built in Pecos County

We covered the Pecos County plant in August, and the project dossier keeps its timeline. In brief:

• Pacifico announced GW Ranch in August 2025 as an off-grid campus on more than 8,000 acres, gas turbines plus batteries, built for hyperscale data centers.
• In January 2026 Pacifico said it had secured a TCEQ air permit for 7.65 GW of gas-fired generation, which it described as the largest air permit granted in the United States.
• In August, Amazon confirmed it is financing the plant to power its campus. Permitting records reviewed by the New York Times allow up to 33 million tons of CO2 a year. That is a permit ceiling, not a measured output, and a plant rarely runs at its ceiling. But it is the number the state signed off on.

Because the plant does not connect to the ERCOT grid, it largely sidesteps the fights a resident would normally use. When Gov. Abbott paused new data center approvals pending an ERCOT and PUCT audit in August, off-grid projects like this one were noted as largely unaffected. There is no utility rate case, so there is no ratepayer docket to intervene in.

What the Climate Week protest actually claimed

The protesters' central number is that Amazon's renewable share is "closer to 22%," not 100%. It is worth knowing exactly where that number comes from before anyone repeats it at a microphone.

• Amazon's claim is precise about its wording. Its 2025 sustainability report says it matched 100% of the electricity its global operations consumed with renewable energy, for the third year in a row. "Matched" means Amazon bought or contracted for as much renewable power, including renewable energy credits, as it used over the year. It does not mean the electrons at any given data center were renewable at any given hour.
• The 22% figure comes from a July 2024 report by Amazon Employees for Climate Justice. It estimated the share of renewable power Amazon's data centers drew from the local utilities that serve them. Amazon said the report had "incorrect findings and assumptions." It is the group's estimate, it is two years old, and it predates the Pecos plant.
• What nobody disputes is that Amazon's emissions are rising. ESG Dive reported that Amazon's absolute carbon emissions rose 16% in 2025, with scope 2 (purchased electricity) up 34%. Amazon's own framing was that AI is "creating new demands for energy, water, and infrastructure."

Both of the first two statements can be true at once, and that is the useful point for a county. An annual renewable match made through credit purchases elsewhere does nothing to the air permit, the turbines, or the water drawn at a site in West Texas. If a developer or tenant tells a commissioners court that the project is "100% renewable," the question to ask is: matched how, where, and in which hours? And does that include the power plant on this site?

What happened in Brewster County

Per Marfa Public Radio, Pacifico representatives met Brewster County officials with no formal presentation, describing the project as very early. The concept they described was an off-grid data center powered by gas turbines, possibly with solar and batteries. It would employ 100 to 200 people, might include worker housing, and would cost somewhere between $5 billion and $60 billion. That range is Pacifico's own, and a twelve-fold spread tells you how early this is.

County Judge Greg Henington told the company, "we're not taking this, like a lay down," and raised noise, water use, and the county's identity. About ten residents spoke against it, citing air quality, noise, and the dark skies that the region's tourism depends on. No development agreement was presented, though the idea came up several times.

A Brewster County resident is in a stronger position than Pecos County was, for one reason: they know what the first project looks like. In Pecos County, the county's leverage was the Chapter 312 tax abatement for the GW Ranch reinvestment zone, heard in June 2026. Texas counties generally lack zoning power over unincorporated land, so an abatement agreement is where conditions go. Floyd County commissioners said they would use exactly that tool to put conditions on Amazon's Floydada campus. If Pacifico wants an abatement in Brewster County, that agreement is where noise limits, lighting, water reporting, and decommissioning terms get written, or don't.

Who is paying for the gas buildout

Pecos County is not the only place a data center is getting its own gas plant, and the money behind these projects increasingly isn't the tech company. Timed to Climate Week, the Private Equity Stakeholder Project published research on private equity's role in data centers and power. It is an advocacy group, so read its framing as advocacy, but its numbers are cited:

• Citing S&P Global, it puts private equity investment in U.S. data centers at $45.7 billion in 2025, roughly 72% of all investment in the sector, and says PE firms back half of the top 10 U.S. data center companies.
• DigitalBridge, a data-center investor, agreed this summer to acquire ArcLight Capital Partners, which owns about 20.8 GW of power generation, including gas.
• EQT-backed EdgeConneX is developing data centers alongside gas generation in Ohio, and EQT is moving to acquire the utility AES.

Why this matters locally: the entity across the table from a county is often not the brand on the building. In Pecos County the plant is Pacifico's and the campus is Amazon's, filed under Amazon Data Services. When a new developer arrives, find out who owns it, who finances it, and who the tenant is. Then make any commitment bind the entity that will actually be there in ten years.

Questions for a commissioners court

1. Will the plant connect to ERCOT? If not, which state review applies, and is the air permit already filed with TCEQ?
2. What is the permitted CO2 and NOx ceiling, and what is the expected actual operating profile?
3. Where does the water come from, and will withdrawals be reported publicly?
4. Who is the tenant? Is the tenant a party to the abatement agreement?
5. If the company claims renewable energy, is that an annual match through credits, or generation on this site?

See also

• Amazon Fort Stockton campus dossier: dated, sourced timeline
• Our August post on the Pecos County plant
• Texas state briefing: moratoriums, officials, and the PUC
• Start here: the meeting-prep wizard for a vote in the next three weeks