Stargate Abilene adds 41 gas turbines and 62 diesel generators under a permit written for dry cleaners

Texas lets small emitters — a dry cleaner, a shop with a backup generator — skip the full air-permitting process through "permits by rule" and "standard permits". Floodlight and The Texas Tribune found that the Crusoe-built Stargate campus in Abilene, serving Oracle Cloud and OpenAI, used those same routes to authorise 10 gas-fired turbines and 62 emergency diesel generators totalling roughly 170 MW of backup capacity (34 Caterpillar and 28 Baudouin units, the latter 2.8 MW each).

The expansion proposal filed for the site adds two more buildings of about 738,000 sq ft each, 29 GE LM2500 and 12 Aero DT35 gas turbines of 34.1 MW apiece operating nearly year-round, and 18 further generators. A former EPA enforcement chief told reporters the permit-by-rule process "was conceived of and implemented in a case where an operator wanted a backup generator or three backup generators".

Oracle's 2025 sustainability update excludes its "non-public cloud and AI data center clusters" from its 100% carbon-free electricity claim, with a 2035 target for them. Cleanview's tracking already characterises Abilene as a hybrid grid-plus-gas facility.

Why it matters for the index: both OpenAI and Oracle take deductions in carbon (on-site fossil generation) and conduct (permitting routes that bypass public scrutiny).