The next time you ask Copilot to write an email or query Azure’s AI services, the electricity that processes your request might come from an unexpected source: cow manure. Across the country, data center operators and energy developers are exploring renewable natural gas (RNG) captured from animal waste and food scraps as a round-the-clock power solution for the ballooning energy appetite of artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mining. It’s a concept that sounds like a climate win—turning a potent greenhouse gas emitter into fuel—but it’s igniting fierce opposition from rural communities and environmental advocates who argue the practice could lock in decades of methane pollution while burdening already overstressed farm regions.

How Manure Becomes Data Center Fuel

The process begins on large dairy or hog farms, where mountains of manure are mixed with water and fed into sealed tanks called anaerobic digesters. Bacteria break down the organic matter in the absence of oxygen, producing biogas—mostly methane and carbon dioxide. That raw biogas is then scrubbed of impurities, upgraded to pipeline-quality methane, and injected into existing natural gas pipelines. The end product, known as renewable natural gas or biomethane, is chemically identical to fossil natural gas and can be burned to generate electricity, heat, or both.

From the data center’s perspective, RNG is a tool to keep servers humming when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. Unlike solar and wind farms, a digester can run 24/7, turning a constant stream of waste into a steady stream of electrons. For crypto miners and AI training clusters that require uninterrupted power, that baseload profile is a key selling point. Energy developers are pitching RNG as “carbon negative” because capturing methane from manure prevents it from escaping into the atmosphere, where it is more than 80 times more potent than CO2 over a 20-year period.

The AI Power Crunch Driving the Search for Dirty Fuels

The global race to build larger AI models has sent data center electricity demand skyrocketing. A single ChatGPT query consumes roughly ten times the energy of a standard Google search, and training a large language model can emit as much CO2 as five cars over their lifetimes. Cloud providers are scrambling to add capacity—the International Energy Agency expects data center power consumption to double by 2026, reaching as much as 1,000 terawatt-hours annually. Some regions, like Northern Virginia and Ireland, have already placed moratoriums on new developments due to grid strain.

Tech companies have made splashy carbon-neutral or carbon-negative pledges. Microsoft, for instance, aims to be carbon negative by 2030 and to zero out all historical emissions by 2050. Amazon plans to power its operations with 100% renewable energy by 2025. Yet behind the scenes, many of these firms are struggling to find enough new clean electricity to satisfy both their growth and their corporate goals. Wind and solar are intermittent and face siting and interconnection delays. Battery storage is still expensive at scale. So, some operators are turning to RNG as a “bridge fuel”—one that can be scaled relatively quickly while claiming environmental benefits.

Not So Green: The Climate and Community Backlash

But critics say the bridge leads to a dead end. The manure-to-data-center pipeline faces a growing wave of opposition from local residents, environmental groups, and even some clean-energy advocates who see it as greenwashing.

The first problem is methane leaks. Even state-of-the-art digesters and pipelines can leak, and methane slipping out at any point undercuts the climate advantage. A 2022 study published in Environmental Research Letters found that widely used biomethane certificates overstate greenhouse gas savings by up to two-thirds once real-world leakage is accounted for. Furthermore, burning RNG for electricity still produces CO2 and nitrogen oxides at the point of combustion—contributing to local air pollution—rather than eliminating fossil fuel use altogether.

Then there are the community impacts. Most digesters are built on or near large industrial farms, which are often located in rural, low-income communities and communities of color. Residents near these operations complain of odors, truck traffic, and the risk of explosions from pressurized gas systems. In states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and California, neighbors have filed lawsuits and organized protests against proposed digester-and-pipeline projects, arguing they would transform their towns into sacrifice zones for Big Tech’s convenience.

Environmental advocates also worry about a perverse incentive: by creating a new revenue stream for factory farms, RNG subsidies could encourage further expansion of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). These operations already contribute to water pollution, soil degradation, and public health risks. Locking them into the energy system for decades would make it harder to transition to more sustainable agricultural practices.

What It Means for Cloud Customers

If you’re a business or individual using cloud-based AI services, you may be indirectly tied to these manure-to-power schemes. The electricity that runs Microsoft’s Azure data centers in Iowa, for example, could come from a mix of wind, solar, and RNG purchased through power purchase agreements. Because electrons are indistinguishable on the grid, your Copilot query might effectively burn methane from a hog farm—and your cloud provider’s sustainability report might count that as a renewable energy credit.

This disconnect between green marketing and on-the-ground reality is increasingly under scrutiny. Microsoft, Amazon, and Google have all committed to “24/7 carbon-free energy” matching—meaning they want to pair every hour of consumption with carbon-free generation. RNG offers a way to fill gaps when renewables can’t, but its actual carbon intensity varies dramatically depending on the source and supply chain. For companies that have promised climate leadership, relying on a fuel that communities are fighting could become a reputational liability.

For IT professionals and procurement managers, the takeaway is that not all “renewable” fuels are equal. When signing service level agreements or evaluating cloud vendors, it’s worth asking hard questions: Is the provider using unabated RNG? How much fugitive methane is estimated in the supply chain? Has the project received community consent? The answers may influence your own ESG reporting and stakeholder expectations.

How We Arrived at the Manure Gateway

The rise of manure-to-data-center energy is a story of converging trends. First, the explosive growth of large-scale AI from around 2015 onward pushed tech companies to secure massive amounts of power quickly. Second, the falling cost of anaerobic digesters—coupled with generous state and federal subsidies, including the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard and California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard—made RNG a lucrative industry. Between 2010 and 2023, U.S. biomethane production capacity more than doubled.

Third, corporate renewable energy procurement evolved. Simple renewable energy certificates (RECs) fell out of favor as critics pointed out they often didn’t displace any new clean generation. Companies moved to virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) and, most recently, to 24/7 carbon-free matching. RNG, with its steady output, appeared to solve the intermittency puzzle. Early pilot projects linked crypto mining operations to landfills and dairy farms, and the concept quickly attracted attention from AI infrastructure investors.

The current cycle of pushback echoes earlier battles over biomass power plants and waste incinerators, which also divided the environmental community. Then, as now, the core tension is between a desire for “circular economy” fuels and the local harms they can cause.

What Can Be Done

If you’re a consumer: Ask your cloud provider directly about its energy mix and RNG use. Companies publish sustainability reports and sometimes detailed maps of their energy procurement. Your questions, loud and clear, can influence corporate decisions. Support digital-rights and environmental organizations that push for greater transparency.

If you’re an IT buyer or sustainability officer: Incorporate a “community consent” clause into any RFP for cloud services. Require not just renewable energy coverage, but proof that independent third parties have audited methane leakage and that local residents were meaningfully consulted. Consider power purchase agreements that explicitly exclude RNG if other zero-carbon options, such as nuclear or long-duration storage, are viable in your region.

If you’re a policymaker: Strengthen methane regulations along the supply chain. Authorize funding for community benefit agreements and participatory siting processes. Remove subsidies that reward worst-in-class CAFOs while ignoring alternative farm practices. The data center industry needs clear rules of the road, not ad-hoc infrastructure that pits rural interests against the cloud.

Outlook

Manure-to-power RNG for data centers is unlikely to become a dominant global fuel, but it could carve out a significant niche in farming-heavy regions like the Midwest as AI demands grow. Expect more pilot projects and more lawsuits. The technology faces headwinds from competing long-duration energy storage, small modular nuclear reactors, and possibly enhanced geothermal. Still, for tech companies caught between skyrocketing power needs and looming climate deadlines, the allure of turning waste into watts will be hard to resist. The real test will be whether they can do it without creating a new set of environmental and social costs—and without losing the trust of the very users who rely on their clouds.