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.
Louisiana just voted to call natural gas a green energy source.
My region of Canada has some STRONG PR calling LNG ‘green’. Fracking methane schleppers.
Sounds like they need to be either charging way more for electricity or cutting off these AI server farms.
Which do you think will happen and realistically who will end up paying?
They are charging us consumers way more for electricity.
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.
I’m starting to think a big reason for the AI push is fossil fuel corps knowing how much energy it wastes…
Like, the wealthy just keep saying it will both be revolutionary and also not reduce the labor force somehow, and not a single fucking one can actually say how it’ll happen
It’s a grift. But it’s a grift that’s actively and substantially excarbating climate change.
Mmmhmmmm, go further. New highly efficient silver batteries in China can charge in less than 5 minutes. We are the cusp of nuclear revolution with Natrium reactors being built by Bill Gates in the US and Thorium Salt reactors in China and Denmark which potentially can operate far more efficiently than water cooled reactors and produce 1/1000 of the waste nuclear material. Nuclear power, plus fast charging cars means, no need for fossil fuels. Peter Thiel, the transhumanist paypal founder who co-founded Palantir (who are profiling all of the people in America and The UK), who believes we need to merge with technology and evolve our consciousness into immortal cyberspace copies (seriously) just like Elon. Is a member and repeated essayist for The Cato Foundation, a libertarian think tank founded by the Koch brothers, it was here he penned the essay stating, I no longer believe democracy and freedom to be compatible. How do we ensure fossil fuels dominance over the next century? Big Tech are seizing control of the world’s armies, because there are no electric tanks…
Nah, renewableas are generally cheaper than fossil. If anything this will accelerate the transition to green power
This isn’t a hypothetical…
These facilities exist and are fueled almost exclusively by fossil fuels.
Like Three Miles Island nuclear power plant bought by Microsoft to power AI training?
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How much energy did that produce yesterday? Spoiler: it’s not even scheduled to be on for 2 more years…
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Microsoft being involved didn’t make the restart happen, it will at most move the timeline up a year, and that’s now baked into the 2027 number.
Chickens ain’t eggs homie…
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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.
