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Big Tech's AI Datacenters Demand Electricity. Are They Increasing Use of Fossil Fuels?
The artificial intelligence revolution will demand more electricity, warns the Washington Post. "Much more..." They warn that the "voracious" electricity consumption of AI is driving an expansion of fossil fuel use in America — "including delaying the retirement of some coal-fired plants." ...
The article quotes a project director at the nonprofit Data & Society, which tracks the effect of AI and accuses the tech industry of using "fuzzy math" in its climate claims. The article also summarzies a recent Goldman Sachs analysis, which predicted data centers would use 8% of America's total electricity by 2030, with 60% of that usage coming "from a vast expansion in the burning of natural gas. ""We all want to be cleaner," Brian Bird, president of NorthWestern Energy, a utility serving Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, told a recent gathering of data center executives in Washington, D.C. "But you guys aren't going to wait 10 years ... My only choice today, other than keeping coal plants open longer than all of us want, is natural gas.
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