Current expert forecasts suggest power-hungry artificial intelligence is consuming ever-increasing amounts of energy from the ailing U.S. power grid, endangering national efforts to combat climate change.
Unprecedented energy demand, fueled partly by the expansion of AI data centers, coupled with the slower-than-expected pace of renewable energy development and longer operating hours for polluting coal-fired power plants have led analysts to revise their models for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The issue dominated discussions at Climate Week NYC, held last week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, where technology corporations were more in focus than the businesses accountable for pollution prior to now.
BloombergNEF's latest report warned this week of the U.S.'s slower progress toward decarbonization, predicting emissions would fall just 34 percent from 2005 levels by 2030.
The latest assessment puts the U.S. even further away from its national goal of cutting emissions by 50-52 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, as promised under the Paris Agreement.
“This is much from good,” said Tara Narayanan, senior power analyst at BloombergNEF, calling the surge in AI power demand a “major disruption” to produce.
“It's very just like that moment whenever you're deep into the film and three different storylines have been developed. “You don’t know if it is going to be resolved,” Narayanan said.
The lack of grid infrastructure is proving to be a serious obstacle to progress within the green energy transition not only within the United States but around the globe.
China is anticipated to spend an unprecedented $800 billion over the subsequent six years to beat stresses in its energy system because it rapidly switches from coal power to renewables.
In the United States, electricity demand remained virtually unchanged for 20 years. Now forecasters similar to consulting group ICF expect a 9 percent increase by 2028 and nearly 20 percent by 2033, citing data center growth, shifting manufacturing and electrification.
The Electric Power Research Institute predicted this yr that data centers could double their share of U.S. electricity consumption by the tip of the last decade.
But Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. energy secretary, said she believes the country can still meet its net-zero goals and deal with the explosion in electricity demand, due to the nearly $370 billion in green subsidies included within the Inflation Reduction Act introduced by the Joe Biden administration.
“We should be aggressive, however the momentum has began and just isn’t slowing down,” Granholm told the Financial Times.
Renewable energy project developers say producing green energy to satisfy historical demand levels is hampered by the undeniable fact that it will probably take as much as half a decade for brand new supply to come back online on account of approvals and delays in grid expansion.
“The need of the hour is to balance this,” said Sandhya Ganapathy, managing director of EDP Renewables North America. “Unfortunately, we may not have the (renewable) projects on the pace that is required.”
The proliferation of AI data centers has led to a race amongst Big Tech corporations to search out low-emission energy sources across the clock.
Last week, Constellation Energy and Microsoft signed a 20-year deal to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, the positioning of the country's worst nuclear accident.
Expectations of upper electricity demand have also led U.S. operators to delay retirements of coal-fired power plants. S&P Global Commodity Insights has revised its expectations for coal-fired power plant retirements by 40 percent by the tip of the last decade, at the same time as renewable energy becomes increasingly popular.
“The way things are going straight away, it’s very hard to assume that the U.S. power system can be carbon-free by 2035,” said Akshat Kasliwal, energy expert at PA Consulting. “We are further away from this goal than we were about three or 4 years ago.”
Pedro Pizarro, chief executive of public utility Edison International, said the surge in demand meant gas-fired power plants would also must stay within the energy mix longer to make sure security of supply. Gas consists primarily of the highly warming molecule methane, which retains more heat than carbon dioxide but has a shorter lifespan within the atmosphere.
“We usually are not a gas company. . . “We don’t have a dog attempting to keep the gas around,” Pizarro said. “We as an industry need to make sure now we have a system that’s reliable, resilient and as reasonably priced as possible at the same time as extreme weather increases.”
However, there isn’t any shortage of renewable energy capability within the United States. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that just about 1.5 terawatts of generating capability is waiting to be connected to the grid, enough to greater than double the dimensions of the country's power system.
But projects built last yr had to attend five years to be connected to the grid, and a scarcity of transmission lines makes it difficult to move green energy from distant generation sites to demand centers.
Research firm Rhodium Group has found that as demand for data centers nearly triples by 2035 and developers struggle to put in recent wind and solar arrays, Energy sector emissions might be greater than 56 percent higher than forecast within the moderate emissions outlook.
However, the steep forecasts could also turn into rather more muted as data centers turn into more efficient, tech executives argue, and wider adoption of AI reduces energy consumption by improving day by day operations.
“Although it takes energy to coach the models, the models created will do the job in a rather more energy efficient manner,” Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the fastest-growing AI chipmaker, said Friday on the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The energy efficiency and productivity gains we are going to achieve through (AI). . . can be incredible.”
Climate capital
Where climate change meets the economy, markets and politics. Discover the FT's coverage here.
Are you inquisitive about the FT's environmental sustainability commitments? Find out more about our science-based goals here
