New Delhi, Aug. 9 -- FORT STOCKTON, Texas - Amazon's chief climate pledge was written in 2019. The natural gas power plant it is building in West Texas was permitted in 2026. The distance between those two documents now defines the cost of artificial intelligence.

The company is constructing an on-site combustion facility in Pecos County to power what is expected to become one of its largest artificial intelligence data center campuses. State permits reviewed by The New York Times and first reported by Distilled, a newsletter covering energy and climate, show the plant has received authorization to release 33 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, as confirmed by TechCrunch. No operating power plant in the United States emits at...