The critics keep saying clean coal with carbon capture is a fantasy. Tell that to Boston Consulting Group.

BCG just published an analysis of eight technologies competing to power the coming wave of AI data centers. Their conclusion: gas and coal plants with carbon capture are currently the best-positioned solution to close an 80-gigawatt reliability gap the US faces by 2030. Not nuclear. Not geothermal. Not renewables paired with storage. Fossil fuels with capture.

That’s exactly the model the UAF feasibility study identified for the Susitna basin. While Mat-Su opponents are still arguing about whether carbon capture is real, Google is signing power purchase agreements for it in Illinois, Chevron is building it for data centers in the Southeast and Midwest, and BCG is telling Fortune 500 boardrooms it’s the smart money.

Alaska has the coal, the geology, and the cold climate. The rest of the country is catching up to what Terra Energy already proposed for Port MacKenzie. Read the BCG piece.

https://www.bcg.com/publications/2026/solving-the-us-data-center-power-crunch