America's Climate Change Goals Hurt By AI

Facebook Tweet LinkedIn

The US government has promised to become “greener” and lower carbon emissions. The same holds for many of America’s biggest companies, particularly those in the tech sector. AI energy consumption has changed that. Today, the government and companies must decide how much they want to trade off between being green and advancing the most important technology created in decades.

According to the FT, the US promised to cut emissions by half by 2030 compared to a 2005 benchmark and extend that promise to zero emissions by 2050. AI will make that impossible. “That’s not good by a long shot,” said Tara Narayanan, lead power analyst at BloombergNEF, to the newspaper.

AI has already begun straining the electric grid in the US, and tech companies are looking for solutions. Recently, Microsoft cut a deal to reopen part of Three Mile Island—a meltdown in 1979 set nuclear energy in the US back by decades. Tech companies have started to turn to smaller nuclear reactors–Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)

The hoped-for rapid growth of solar and wind has yet to materialize. The projects’ costs are high. Government investment is too modest. Private capital finds the investments too risky.

These challenges mean that, at least for the time being, power-hungry AI will need to get much of its energy from fossil fuels. The use of coal to produce electricity has fallen most years since 2007. However, it is only slightly less than in 1980. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States has an estimated 250 billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves.

The oil price has fallen sharply in the last year, mainly due to US production.

The growth in AI use and its energy need will grow. This technology is too important when there is too much demand to cut energy use growth. America, despite its best intentions, will not be getting greener soon.