A Startup Wants to Power Data Centers With ‘Supercritical’ Carbon Dioxide — SkimNews
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- American Supercritical came out of stealth with $8 million in funding, unveiling plans to retrofit gas turbines at data centers with supercritical CO2 units that capture waste heat from exhaust
- The company's initial 10-megawatt unit could raise simple-cycle turbine efficiency from roughly 35% by up to 50%, with no additional greenhouse gas emissions and minimal water use
- Amazon is building a Texas data center plant running only simple-cycle turbines, permitted to emit more than 33 million tons of greenhouse gases per year—more than some small countries
- Cofounder Matthew Carlson says the units could also work with small modular reactors, a technology that has drawn strong support from the Trump administration; the company has signed an initial agreement with an unnamed partner
- China announced earlier this year that operations began at the world's first geothermal plant using supercritical CO2, the same technology Carlson researched for over a decade
- Adviser Doug Hofer, a 20-year GE turbine veteran, blames slow commercialization on the 'innovator's dilemma'—large turbine makers are satisfied with traditional plants and unwilling to fund potential competitors
- Global data center investment is projected to hit $7 trillion by 2030, and cofounder Simon Shuham says operators are 'bottlenecked' on power and willing to pay for retrofits
Why it matters: Simple-cycle turbines at data centers waste roughly 65% of their fuel as exhaust heat—a gap American Supercritical targets with closed-loop CO2 that converts that heat into extra electricity without burning more gas or consuming water. If the 10-megawatt unit delivers its promised 50% efficiency bump at data-center scale, operators squeeze more power from existing turbines and delay new plant builds in a sector racing to keep up with AI demand.
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