AI’s Rapid Growth Threatens Energy Industry, Economy, and Climate, by Haley Zaremba

AI’s an energy glutton. From Haley Zaremba at oilprice.com:

• AI’s rapid growth threatens the stability of the energy industry, economy, and climate due to its high energy consumption.
• The tech sector’s decarbonization goals are challenged by AI’s power demands, with Google reporting a 48 percent increase in carbon emissions over the last five years.
• AI and electric vehicles are expected to add significant electricity demand to the US grid, potentially leading to energy shortages and increased energy bills.

The growth of Artificial Intelligence has come on so strong and so fast that it threatens to destabilize the energy industry, the economy, and the climate. 

Last week, Google stated that its carbon emissions have skyrocketed by a whopping 48 percent over the last five years. “AI-powered services involve considerably more computer power – and so electricity – than standard online activity, prompting a series of warnings about the technology’s environmental impact,” the BBC reported Thursday. Indeed, a recent study from scientists at Cornell University finds that generative AI systems like ChatGPT use up to 33 times more energy than computers running task-specific software. Furthermore, each AI-powered internet query consumes about ten times more energy than traditional internet searches. 

This runaway increase in power consumption as AI picks up speed poses a direct threat to the tech sector’s ability to make good on its decarbonization promises. While Google hasn’t budged from its net-zero by 2030 goals, the company has admitted that “as we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging.” 

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