Oil and Gas Watch

February 19, 2026

Massive gas-powered data center in Permian Basin is latest in string of Texas AI computing hubs

Texas’s environmental agency recently approved the latest in a string of large gas-fired power plants to support the state’s burgeoning data center industrial complex. The GW Ranch Project, set to be constructed in Pecos County, West Texas, in the Permian Basin, could generate up to 7.65 gigawatts of electricity, making it the largest power project in the U.S. One gigawatt of electricity can power about 750,000 homes, so this single data center complex could power over five million homes, or a large American city.

October 2, 2025

Deep blue California ‘panics’ about refinery closures by allowing more drilling

As recently as a few years ago, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was calling on the state to ban hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas by 2024 and to consider phasing out all oil production statewide by 2045. Newsom has since pivoted to support a six-bill package of energy and climate legislation, including a bill that allows oil-rich Kern County, north of Los Angeles, to issue 2,000 new drilling permits a year without further environmental review for the next decade.

Brendan Gibbons

September 25, 2025

Data show U.S. has no energy ‘emergency,’ despite Trump order directing agencies to fast-track fossil fuels

Despite heaps of evidence to the contrary, the White House issued orders on Jan. 20 claiming that the country has “insufficient energy production, transportation, refining, and generation” and that it is “in the national interest to unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy.” In reality, the U.S. does not have an energy emergency, with the country's energy production and exports reaching record highs.

Brendan Gibbons

September 18, 2025

Texas company plans massive power plants to fuel 'intelligence campus' named after Trump

In the panhandle of Texas, a company is planning to build a massive gas-fired power plant and four nuclear reactors to supply energy for a data center complex – all dubbed the “President Donald J. Trump Advanced Energy and Intelligence Campus.” The project joins a wave of companies proposing new gas-fired power plants in Texas and across the U.S.,

September 11, 2025

Southwestern states struggling with drought debate the recycling of fracking wastewater

Often contaminated with carcinogens like benzene and arsenic, the water that flows back up from oil and gas extraction wells is expensive to store, hard to reuse, extremely brackish, and has caused countless headaches for both industry and nearby residents. Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas are pursuing ways to make industry recycle more of its wastewater in oilfields to avoid depleting freshwater sources, as well as attempting to expand the use of this wastewater for other purpose

Brendan Gibbons

September 4, 2025

Louisiana officials want to displace a majority Black community to make room for industrial 'MegaPark'

State and local officials envision Modeste, a small community in Ascension Parish, not as a tight-knit residential community but as the “RiverPlex Megapark,” a 17,000-acre industrial site home to multiple industries. If all goes according to plan, dozens of residents would leave to make room for a steel plant by Korean automaker Hyundai. State officials are offering Hyundai $2.4 billion in incentives, including a $1.2 billion in local property and sales tax breaks.