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Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

arstechnica.com

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Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#11

Post by crowcroft »

robnado wrote: post #2

This is an economics problem: if the cost of energy is lower or equal to the benefit of consuming it, the energy will be consumed. As more and more energy is consumed to run these datacenters, price of energy will go up, and datacenters will learn to either be more efficient, or will pass on these costs to their users who will learn to be more efficient. Of course, there might be inefficiencies like subsidies and mon…

Are environmental externalities accounted for? How do we accurately measure the 'benefit' of something when it's still largely speculative (ie. AI is not providing as much value RIGHT NOW, but we think it will in the future).

Economic problems are rarely just economic problems, and saying that it will resolve itself in the long term is dismissive and offers no value to the discussion.

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#12

Post by jncfhnb »

teitoklien wrote: post #8
jncfhnb wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax data center usage

And watch the entire compute infrastructure and industry of vital importance (state of the art compute capabilities in AI) move to other nations and then later end up being dependent on them.

State of the art compute capabilities, aka hardware, is already built in other nations.

Mandating domestically owned servers is commonplace.

And this was in response to someone whose best idea was “ban ai”

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#13

Post by FreeRadical »

xnx wrote: post #10
zdp7 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is an environmental one. The cost here is environmental damage. The solution will need to be policy decisions that take that damage into account.

It would be great if more externalities were priced in to the cost of energy, but there doesn't seem to be anything special about AI datacenters vs. any other use of energy. Data centers actually seem much more consciences about the impacts of their energy. I don't think I've read any headlines about cement plants trying to switch to 100% renewable.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxee01m5yero.amp

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#14

Post by keyringlight »

robnado wrote: post #4
zdp7 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is an environmental one. The cost here is environmental damage. The solution will need to be policy decisions that take that damage into account.

That's why much of the world is gradually shifting over to renewable energy usage. In a world where energy is renewable, does not generate greenhouse gas and (hopefully) does not produce other externalities, our best way of dealing with these resource allocation problems is the free market. The alternative is regulation, which, I'm not even sure how it could be used to address this particular issue. Ban AI or crypto?…

The trouble I see is that new consumption matching (or even some locations where proposed DCs exceed) new green generation may not let us displace dirty generation such as coal, which we should be looking to eliminate.

The other issue that comes up with green generation is how variable it is, sometimes it'll be cloudy and still air, others will be windy and sunny, and the grid needs to capable of supplying everyone in both scenarios and not overbuilding generation they can't turn off. Having industries available to soak up an appropriate amount of energy available within their ecosystem would be great, but it's a hard sell to anyone to invest billions in sites where there could be no guarantees on utilization if they get bad weather for a few months. If there is any "plays nicely with others" regulation on consumption of a common resource, it's going to be reactive to problems than ahead of time.

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#15

Post by samatman »

keyringlight wrote: post #14
robnado wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why much of the world is gradually shifting over to renewable energy usage. In a world where energy is renewable, does not generate greenhouse gas and (hopefully) does not produce other externalities, our best way of dealing with these resource allocation problems is the free market. The alternative is regulation, which, I'm not even sure how it could be used to address this particular issue. Ban AI or crypto?…

The trouble I see is that new consumption matching (or even some locations where proposed DCs exceed) new green generation may not let us displace dirty generation such as coal, which we should be looking to eliminate. The other issue that comes up with green generation is how variable it is, sometimes it'll be cloudy and still air, others will be windy and sunny, and the grid needs to capable of supplying everyone i…

The solution to all of these problems is an aggressive buildout of nuclear fission plants to provide baseline power and accelerate the closure of all remaining plants which burn fossil fuel. Subsidized if necessary, as essential infrastructure.

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#16

Post by Veedrac »

crowcroft wrote: post #11
robnado wrote: post #2

This is an economics problem: if the cost of energy is lower or equal to the benefit of consuming it, the energy will be consumed. As more and more energy is consumed to run these datacenters, price of energy will go up, and datacenters will learn to either be more efficient, or will pass on these costs to their users who will learn to be more efficient. Of course, there might be inefficiencies like subsidies and mon…

Are environmental externalities accounted for? How do we accurately measure the 'benefit' of something when it's still largely speculative (ie. AI is not providing as much value RIGHT NOW, but we think it will in the future). Economic problems are rarely just economic problems, and saying that it will resolve itself in the long term is dismissive and offers no value to the discussion.

The environmental externality of new energy in the US is likely ~0, potentially even net positive, because approximately all new energy in the US is renewable, and displacement effects are likely to dominate the small-single-digit percentage of nonrenewables and the marginal environmental cost of the renewables themselves.

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#17

Post by prrrywinkle »

xnx wrote: post #10
zdp7 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is an environmental one. The cost here is environmental damage. The solution will need to be policy decisions that take that damage into account.

It would be great if more externalities were priced in to the cost of energy, but there doesn't seem to be anything special about AI datacenters vs. any other use of energy. Data centers actually seem much more consciences about the impacts of their energy. I don't think I've read any headlines about cement plants trying to switch to 100% renewable.

[dead]

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#18

Post by api »

crowcroft wrote: post #11
robnado wrote: post #2

This is an economics problem: if the cost of energy is lower or equal to the benefit of consuming it, the energy will be consumed. As more and more energy is consumed to run these datacenters, price of energy will go up, and datacenters will learn to either be more efficient, or will pass on these costs to their users who will learn to be more efficient. Of course, there might be inefficiencies like subsidies and mon…

Are environmental externalities accounted for? How do we accurately measure the 'benefit' of something when it's still largely speculative (ie. AI is not providing as much value RIGHT NOW, but we think it will in the future). Economic problems are rarely just economic problems, and saying that it will resolve itself in the long term is dismissive and offers no value to the discussion.

That's why high-carbon sources like coal and oil should be subject to carbon taxes: to price in externalities.

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#19

Post by TheDudeMan »

robnado wrote: post #2

This is an economics problem: if the cost of energy is lower or equal to the benefit of consuming it, the energy will be consumed. As more and more energy is consumed to run these datacenters, price of energy will go up, and datacenters will learn to either be more efficient, or will pass on these costs to their users who will learn to be more efficient. Of course, there might be inefficiencies like subsidies and mon…

(people sing a different tune when the power consumer is bitcoin miners)

Re: Taking a closer look at AI's supposed energy apocalypse

#20

Post by IMTDb »

Veedrac wrote: post #16
crowcroft wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are environmental externalities accounted for? How do we accurately measure the 'benefit' of something when it's still largely speculative (ie. AI is not providing as much value RIGHT NOW, but we think it will in the future). Economic problems are rarely just economic problems, and saying that it will resolve itself in the long term is dismissive and offers no value to the discussion.

The environmental externality of new energy in the US is likely ~0, potentially even net positive, because approximately all new energy in the US is renewable, and displacement effects are likely to dominate the small-single-digit percentage of nonrenewables and the marginal environmental cost of the renewables themselves.

Lithium extraction to build millions of solar panels, batteries etc is not a 0 impact operation.
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