The "Energy Transition" Won't Happen Foundational innovation in cloud technology and artificial intelligence will require more energy than ever before-shattering any illusion that we will restrict supplies.
Rediscovery of the iron law of growth inspired an urgent Senate hearing on May 21 entitled "Opportunities, Risks, and Challenges Associated with Growth in Demand for Electric Power in the United States." Each datacenter-and tens of thousands of them exist-has an energy appetite often greater than skyscrapers the size of the Empire State Building.
The nearly 1,000 so-called hyperscale datacenters each consume more energy than a steel mill.
Tech companies have come to a shock realisation they need vast supplies of cheap energy, and fast.
Tech companies still claim green energy is important to them, but personally I don't believe these claims.
Tech companies are clearly preparing to downgrade green energy in favour of more energy.
The energy required to run computers to calculate all these potential solutions will be unimaginable in today's terms.
Just look at how bitcoin mining nowadays consumes more energy than some small countries, with millions of computers across the world testing and discarding uncounted billions of potential solutions to Bitcoin cryptography puzzles, to find that one solution which earns newly minted bitcoins for their operators.
There is no path to green energy delivering the required magnitude of power, on anything like the timeframe tech companies need to stay competitive.
Tech companies know they need access to a vast increase in energy generation, and they need it fast, otherwise energy rich Asian AI companies will wipe the floor with them.
From the Bloomberg article quoted above, as recently as 2020 people in charge of big US tech companies were oblivious to how their energy needs would suddenly skyrocket.
No comments:
Post a Comment