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.
The only thing I don’t like with these articles is that they always focus on the USA, I want way more info on data centre builds in Europe, power usage and renewable energy plans
The UK for example is emitting as much co2 as it did in 1886, an absolutely amazing achievement
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co2-emissions-per-country?country=~GBR
I seriously doubt that data centres are going to meaningfully impact that
What did they do to make this rapid change? I grew so skeptical these days, that my first thoughts are that they might be outsourcing their industry and moving pollution to somewhere else.
I checked this site, and it shows a substantially higher value for 2024, but still a great reduction from before, which is nice!
In other news, “AI could consume more power than Bitcoin by the end of 2025” (digiconomist.net).
I mean yes, look at AI energy consumption. But wasting electricity by mining Bitcoin is so infinitely more stupid. Because you could do the same nonsense with money systems without wasting energy.
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By far most of the stuff LLMs are being used for is just as frivolous and pure greed driven as crypto.
I agree, uncle Bob does not need AI to make a video of a polar bear shooting an RPG into a house after ringing the door bell. My main issue with AI is that it’s so publicly available that people have started using it for the dumbest shit. Why do you need to constantly ask it stuff? People are truly being ridiculous about it, I have lots of coworkers who barely even write their own emails anymore… I’m even starting to wonder what they do during the day.
There’s great use cases for AI, especially in medicine and other fields. But for commercial use it’s basically useless besides being a gimmick.
I suppose, this is quite debatable, because the current money system does waste a whole lot of energy, It’s just not calculated how much. Honestly, if you have have links showing how much energy the banking system consumes globally, please share.
On the other hand, bitcoin’s blockchain is a decentralised and transparent system. This is not something that the banking system can claim.
My biggest problem with traditional banking is how much paper is still used.
Not big. They just need to burn through the money and this is going to end
I’m partially convinced the entire thing is an attempt to keep gas/oil afloat long enough to salvage investments/disinvest
