cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/32465427
Datacentres consume just 1% of the world’s electricity but may soon demand much more. Their share of US electricity is projected to more than double to 8.6% by 2035, according to BloombergNEF, while the IEA projects datacentres will account for at least 20% of the rich world’s growth in electricity demand to the end of the decade.
“This idea that the lower cost of renewables alone will drive decarbonisation – it’s not enough,” said Daly. “Because if there’s a huge source of energy demand that wants to grow, it will land on these stranded fossil fuel assets.”
Tech companies have resisted pressure to provide detailed data on their AI energy footprints,
The IEA estimates that AI could boost technically recoverable oil and gas reserves by 5% and cut the cost of a deepwater offshore project by 10%. Big oil is even more bullish. “Artificial intelligence is, ultimately, within the industry, going to be the next fracking boom,” Mike Sommers, head of the American Petroleum Institute, told Axios.
At the same time, the oil and gas industry says AI can cut its carbon intensity, for instance by analysing satellite data to spot methane leaks. But even here, critics say there is a gap between digital insights and corporate actions.
AI is exacerbating the damage we are causing by staying on fossil fuels. I see the issue is mainly political as we have green energy and all
Good news is there is increased investment in nuclear energy for data centers, which will go a long way to combat this.
Nuclear energy is never good news.
Solar energy can boil water too. At much lower cost, 10x faster build times, and MUCH less waste … none that has to be guarded for centuries.
Never safe, never clean, never too cheap to meter. The exact opposite of the sales pitches. Rarely built without taxpayer dollars. Name the companies willing to insure one.
Crazy people still get downvoted in Lemmy for reminding everyone that Nuclear energy is the most expensive form of generating power while solar, wind, and water are the cheapest.
When you include storage in your cost calculations, this is far, far from the case. If you don’t include storage, you are pairing renewables with natural gas peaker plants, which defeat a good bit of the point of renewables being fossil-fuel-free.
I’d rather just not build them
Is Coal and Gas is your preferred energy source? Because that’s what nuclear would be replacing.
That expenditure would displace the 10x the power which renewables + storage have already proven to do all over the world… that’s what nuclear would replace. Nuclear is never good news.
There are no other alternatives for baseline power generation.
You can’t run a national grid on 100% renewables and batteries. If you’re not using nuclear then you’re using fossil and fossil fuels are not only polluting but the dependence on them creates a huge amount of political instability around the world.
Nuclear plants use less uranium than Coal plants burn into the atmosphere. Coal has trace amount of radioactive uranium and if you burn hundreds of thousands of tons of it every year then you’re putting pounds of radioactive uranium into the atmosphere.
Natural Gas is still fossil fuel.
Ok. You still have to push electrons and also not destroy the global climate.
As much as you think it is BS, datacenters exist and they are attached to the same grid as your house, so if you don’t want the power to your house to go away then the grid needs more generating capacity. Unless you want to live under the ocean or in a desert then that capacity can’t produce CO2. The only options which generate power are renewables and nuclear. Solar and Wind cannot provide baseline power generation and the renewables that can provide baseline power (hydroelectric, for example) are limited in where they can be deployed.
So what power generating source exists that can generate baseline power, doesn’t produce CO2 and can be used without specific geological formations?