Artificial intelligence and the hardware that powers it, is at the heart of a fallout in Pennsylvania, where electricity prices have risen dramatically for wholesalers and consumers due to surging demand. The governor is now threatening to abandon the state’s grid energy provider, PJM Interconnection, via Reuters. He’s demanding that PJM increase energy capacity through the acceleration of new energy plant construction and approval.
Following the launch of ChatGPT in 2023 and the explosion of competitor tools and chatbots in the months that followed, the regional transmission organization, PJM, saw a surge in demand for power as major tech companies scoured the country looking for spare grid capacity to run AI and build new data centers to support them. AI can demand a lot of power, so much so that Elon Musk is shipping an entire power plant to the US.
This couldn’t have come at a worse time, as in 2022, PJM had paused new power plant connections after it faced a huge influx of applications for new renewable projects, which required more engineering oversight before they could be connected to the grid. Although PJM claims that this hasn’t led to a shortfall in supply, it has meant the grid hasn’t expanded like it was expected to. Local opposition to the construction of some of the plants that have been approved has further compounded the issue.
We need to pass legislation that requires all AI services be powered by their own, renewable energy on-site. Then no one can complain and we’ll reduce pollution at the same time.
If the AI services complain we can collectively respond with, “oh yeah? How’s that AGI comin? Surely it can figure out a way to power itself.”
Of course, that’s when the AI companies start hiring humans to sit in energy harvesting pods all day 🤷
You REALLY need to be explicit about the renewable requirement on that. In Texas they have been building basically unregulated and non-grid tied gas power plants to fuel this shit.
Louisiana just voted to call natural gas a green energy source.
Sounds like they need to be either charging way more for electricity or cutting off these AI server farms.
Should be, yes, but the government doesn’t get to make shit up as they go. This fine idea will require legislation which would be quashed by tech money before it made it out of committee.
They are charging us consumers way more for electricity.
Which do you think will happen and realistically who will end up paying?
If not crypto mining, then AI. Just charge them more, new power plants won’t build themselves for free
Just a friendly note: the gaming industry uses about a third as much power as AI. Should gamers be about 1/3 as upset about their own activity as they are about AI, or handwave power use as no big deal?
That level of demand has grown at a steady rate since video games were first created and is pretty consistent.
The spiking demand for power from AI has appeared, in a relative sense, overnight.
You’re right. As an environmental impactor AI is a very recent player. Gaming has been bigtime for decades. If anyone is keeping score they should really looik at gaming’s history of power consumption going back through the 90s. Seems like AI got a lotta catching up to do before it overtakes gaming’s enviromental impact.
Nice bit of pointless whataboutism. What’s the energy impact of mobile phone use globally (which I’m sure you’re currently using to add your 2 pence with.
No I didn’t look at phone use, but who has? The underlying point is really that when people are screaming about a reason something is horrible, and they’re confronted with the information that something they personally do is in the same ballpark (and has been for decades), how should they respond? With a little self examination? Question their own priorities slightly? Apparently not. Just insults, denial, and debate-club bullshit. Like their favorite entertainment is sacred. It’s exactly how the business world responded to climate change - deny, deflect, disengage. Very disingenuous.
