Liebreich: Net Zero Will Be Harder Than You Think – and Easier. Part II: Easier

https://about.bnef.com/blog/liebreich-net-zero-will-be-harder-than-you-think-and-easier-part-ii-easier/

by jillesvangurp • 2 years ago

28 16 2 years ago

about.bnef.com

melling3• 2 years ago

Then why do we read stories about AI consuming too much electricity?

https://e360.yale.edu/features/artificial-intelligence-clima...

Coal usage increasing globally. Shouldn’t we be using renewables?

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-may-upend-...

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/07/27/coal-consumption-hit-an-...

The optimism in the article does seem to match reality

jillesvangurp2• 2 years ago

Because while AI uses a lot of energy, it's mostly of the renewable variety. E.g. Amazon just bought power from a nuclear plant.

Coal is actually on its way out in most places that have AI data centers. Even in the US. Even in hard core coal states, like North and West Virginia. Where that data center is that Amazon just bought nuclear power for.

New use cases drive new demand. Most of that new demand leads to new energy production. The vast majority of that, also in China, is renewable.

cinntaile• 2 years ago

Nuclear is considered low-carbon energy, but it's not considered renewable energy.

melling3• 2 years ago

I’m not sure AI is using “mostly renewables”. I’ve seen lots of stories like this:

“AI Needs So Much Power That Old Coal Plants Are Sticking Around”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-25/ai-needs-...

Nullabillity• 2 years ago

Because while AI uses a lot of energy, it's mostly of the renewable variety.

This bullshit again?

Power is, to an approximation, fungible. Marginal power generation is fossil. It doesn't matter whether your electricity is renewable, as long as renewables aren't powering the grid completely you're effectively just squeezing someone else onto fossil power instead.

Ekaros• 2 years ago

Is it know if the companies shut down their servers and model training or services provided when there is no solar available for example? Wouldn't that be the responsible and green thing to do. No AI during nights?

boxed2• 2 years ago

Coal usage increasing globally

Well.. in China and India only basically. As far as I understand it's about their need to scale up energy production. They can't scale up wind and solar fast enough even if it's cheaper, so they build out both. When they don't need to increase construction so rapidly they will shift build out more and more to cheaper stuff.

joemazerino• 2 years ago

Do you reasonably think China or India cares about the climate? The argument that they need to ramp up production using dirty energy first and will transition later is entirely devoid of evidence.

wwarner• 2 years ago

Data centers produce 30M tons of co2 [0], concrete 4 billion tons [1]. 2 orders of magnitude.

I'd really like to see more depoliticized, scientific discussion of the topic. So many discussions of climate change end with all participants satisfied that nothing is being done and very little can be done.

[0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfba1 [1] https://psci.princeton.edu/tips/2020/11/3/cement-and-concret...

instagib• 2 years ago

If you don’t mind YouTube, here is a decent video and a follow up more positive one I found. It does mention concrete and many other forms of co2 production we haven’t figured out yet.

2022 Kurzgesagt in a nutshell. https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc?si=El6tzqQVhuNKKEj-

2023 less doomerism climate change update: https://youtu.be/LxgMdjyw8uw?si=3RZ2Q414vvfYDSc7

Liebreich: Net Zero Will Be Harder Than You Think – and Easier. Part II: Easier

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