Google’s emissions climb nearly 50% in five years due to AI energy demand
Tech giant’s goal of reducing climate footprint at risk as it grows increasingly reliant on energy-hungry data centres
AI Makes Effective Solar Cells—And Explains the Results
Together, two models optimized organic light-harvesting molecules
Constellation to Launch Crane Clean Energy Center, Restoring Jobs and Carbon-Free Power to The Grid
Constellation announced today the signing of a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft that will pave the way for the launch of the Crane Clean Energy Center (CCEC) and restart of Three Mile Island Unit 1, which operated at industry-leading levels of safety and reliability for decades before being shut down for economic reasons exactly five years ago today.
Microsoft’s Hypocrisy on AI
Can artificial intelligence really enrich fossil-fuel companies and fight climate change at the same time? The tech giant says yes.
Microsoft has continued to seek business from the fossil-fuel industry; documents related to its overall pitch strategy show that it has sought energy-industry business in part by marketing the abilities to optimize and automate drilling and to maximize oil and gas production
The idea that AI’s climate benefits will outpace its environmental costs is largely speculative, however, especially given that generative-AI tools are themselves tremendously resource-hungry
Microsoft has failed to reduce its annual emissions each year since then. Its latest environmental report, released this May, shows a 29 percent increase in emissions since 2020—a change that has been driven in no small part by recent AI development, as the company explains in the report. “All of Microsoft’s public statements and publications paint a beautiful picture of the uses of AI for sustainability,” Alpine told me. “But this focus on the positives is hiding the whole story, which is much darker.”
One slide deck from January 2022 that I obtained presented an analysis of how Microsoft’s tools could allow ExxonMobil to increase its annual revenue by $1.4 billion—$600 million of which would come from maximizing so-called sustainable production, or oil drilled using less energy.
An executive strategy memo from June 2023 indicated that Microsoft hoped to pitch Chevron on adopting OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 to “deliver more business value.” A Chevron spokesperson told me that the company uses AI in part to “identify efficiencies in exploration and recovery and help reduce our environmental footprint.” There is the tension. On the one hand, AI may be able to help reduce drilling’s toll on the environment. On the other hand, it’s used for drilling.
“AI will solve more problems than it creates,” Willis told me. “A lot of the dilemmas that we’re facing with energy will be resolved because of the relationship with generative AI.”
Microsoft is reportedly planning a $100 billion supercomputer to support the next generations of OpenAI’s technologies; it could require as much energy annually as 4 million American homes
As Joppa told me: “This must be the most money we’ve ever spent in the least amount of time on something we fundamentally don’t understand.”
Global data center industry to emit 2.5 billion tons of CO2 through 2030, Morgan Stanley says
A boom in data centers is expected to produce about 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions globally through the end of the decade, and accelerate investments in decarbonization efforts, according to Morgan Stanley research.
Ireland’s datacentres overtake electricity use of all urban homes combined
Statistics raise concerns that rise in demand for data processing driven by AI could derail climate targets
AI already uses as much energy as a small country. It’s only the beginning.
The energy needed to support data storage is expected to double by 2026. You can do something to stop it.
IEA estimates that, added together, this usage represented almost 2 percent of global energy demand in 2022 — and that demand for these uses could double by 2026
Online Car Sales - Navigating the Digital Shift in Auto Industry
Explore the synergy of AI and renewable energy. Discover how AI is reshaping the global energy landscape for a sustainable future.
Using machine learning to assess the livelihood impact of electricity access - Nature
Advancements in satellite imagery and machine learning can be used to infer the causal impact of electricity access on livelihoods, providing a low-cost, generalizable approach to evaluating public policy in data-spare environments.
As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires
Generative artificial intelligence uses massive amounts of energy for computation and data storage and millions of gallons of water to cool the equipment at data centers. Now, legislators and regulators — in the U.S. and the EU — are starting to demand accountability.
A.I. tools fueled a 34% spike in Microsoft’s water consumption, and one city with its data centers is concerned about the effect on residential supply
“They were pretty secretive on what they’re doing out there,” says a former mayor about Microsoft’s data center projects.
Microsoft disclosed that its global water consumption spiked 34% from 2021 to 2022 (to nearly 1.7 billion gallons, or more than 2,500 Olympic-sized swimming pools)
ChatGPT gulps up 500 milliliters of water (close to what’s in a 16-ounce water bottle) every time you ask it a series of between 5 to 50 prompts or questions
Google reported a 20% growth in water use
“was literally made next to cornfields west of Des Moines.”