Artificial intelligence is widely adopted by enterprise technology buyers as a productivity multiplier — but new research warns that in the oil and gas industry, that productivity could carry a steep climate cost. A study published last week in the journal npj Climate Action finds that AI's ability to help fossil fuel companies find, extract, and refine more oil and gas could increase global energy-related emissions by 1.2 to 4.8 percent. According to the research, that additional yearly pollution is equal to the emissions of Mexico at the low end and Russia — the world's fourth-largest emitter — at the high end.
AI as a productivity enhancer for oil and gas
The study was written by Will Alpine and Holly Alpine, former Microsoft sustainability employees who left the company at the start of 2024 over its continued work with the oil and gas industry. The pair modeled AI as a productivity enhancer across the fossil fuel value chain — from extraction to refining to electricity generation — using reports from oil and gas companies about demonstrated gains from AI tools. Their complex economic model projected that AI's productivity boost could add between 1.2 and 4.8 percent to global energy-related emissions.
"The scale of this was staggering," Will Alpine told WIRED.
The study also found that this increase outweighs the benefits AI provides to developing solar, wind, and other clean technologies, and that it significantly outpaces projections of emissions from the global data center buildout.
| AI impact on fossil fuel emissions | Additional yearly emissions | Share of global energy-related emissions |
|---|---|---|
| Low-end estimate | Equal to Mexico's emissions | 1.2% |
| High-end estimate | Equal to Russia's emissions (world's fourth-largest emitter) | 4.8% |
Enabled emissions: the blind spot in tech sustainability
Oil and gas companies have used AI for decades to locate and develop underground resources more efficiently, which the Alpines argue increases global dependence on fossil fuels and makes climate targets harder to reach. While tech companies measure their own operational emissions and those of their supply chain, they typically do not measure how much their tools help increase fossil fuel production. The Alpines call this AI-supported pollution "enabled emissions."
"Sustainability measures [within tech companies] are very much focused on operational emissions," Holly Alpine said.
Will Alpine described the relationship between technology companies and fossil fuels as "a self-reinforcing effect between supply and demand," adding: "One of the key insights of our paper is that you cannot treat them independently. They are two sides of the same coin."
The Microsoft-Chevron data center deal
Fossil fuel companies are increasingly supplying power to the AI buildout. According to WIRED, Chevron and Microsoft recently confirmed that the oil giant will build a large behind-the-meter gas plant in Texas to power data centers for the tech company. In a June call with analysts, Jeff Gustavson, president of Chevron's New Energies division, hinted that the deal would benefit Chevron's AI capacities as well. Chevron, according to Gustavson, will "use some of that compute" generated by the power plant serving Microsoft "to actually power AI inside of our company."
According to the paper, while accounting for operational emissions is important, it ignores emissions that do much more damage to the climate.
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