A new analysis from Environment America Research & Policy Center and Frontier Group finds that proposed US gas power capacity has jumped 44% in just eight months, reaching 60.4 gigawatts through 2030. The surge is driven by soaring electricity demand from data centers, which is also pushing wind and solar plans to the sidelines. Proposed wind capacity dropped 33.9% since December 2025, while solar additions have stalled, though solar still leads overall expected new capacity.
Texas accounts for 33.2% of the planned gas buildout—roughly a third of the national total—followed by Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, and Mississippi. Together, those five states make up about 60% of the proposed additions. The figures exclude off-grid gas plants built to power data centers directly, which could add tens of gigawatts more.
The environmental toll is significant: the analysis estimates that under a high-growth data center scenario, fossil fuel plants, on-site turbines, and backup diesel generators could cause nearly 600,000 asthma symptom cases and about 1,300 premature deaths in 2028. Because new gas plants have long lifespans, they could lock the US into decades of continued fossil fuel dependence, undermining the transition to clean energy. As one analyst put it, any benefits of data centers mean little if the planet is destroyed in the process.