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New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

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Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#81

Post by goda90 »

toast0 wrote: post #75
2ndorderthought wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China invested hugely into renewable energy. Their grid is strong. Ours is falling apart and our renewable energy contracts keep getting shredded. Gas powered data centers is beyond dystopian

If you're worried abour grid health, how is adding distributed generation colocated with new loads dystopian? Sure, it would be nice to be able to build more transmission lines and power stations wherever it makes sense for engineering to build them in order to build a strong grid. But that's hard to do with strong private land ownership and required environmental impact reporting. Something something texas avoiding…

Gas = greenhouse gases. We needed to be reducing those decades ago, not increasing them.

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#82

Post by leonidasrup »

usrusr wrote: post #42

And the sad part is that ai would be a perfect fit for intermittent energy sources: run inference 24/7 (on whatever you can muster, even if it's fossil it simply does not consume all that much compared to training) and over-build training to achieve whatever total throughout you need in time of energy abundance. How heavy would CO2 pricing have to be to make the market do this instead of the exact opposite?

What would be the economy of these data centers if they would run using power source with say, for example 25% capacity factor? What is the capital expenditure of a data center? What is the yearly operational expenditure of a data center?

I found that a 100 MW datacenter can cost roughly $3.35 billion, with a significant portion going to high-end GPUs like the B100 or H100. For electricity, 100 MW data center can incur annual power costs ranging from $41 million to over $131 million, depending on regional energy prices.

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#83

Post by noosphr »

nicoburns wrote: post #76
noosphr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a battery in the world big enough to provide enough power for data enter if this size. Some batteries in this case is a bit like saying some water about the Pacific ocean.

The Pacific Ocean is a bit of an exageration here. There isn't a single battery this big today, but if batteries continue following the exponential growth curve they've been on then there probably will be in the next decade or so (if not sooner).

There's a bit of a difference between 'some batteries' and at least five times the size of the largest battery ever build.

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#84

Post by nmbrskeptix »

nicoburns wrote: post #76
noosphr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a battery in the world big enough to provide enough power for data enter if this size. Some batteries in this case is a bit like saying some water about the Pacific ocean.

The Pacific Ocean is a bit of an exageration here. There isn't a single battery this big today, but if batteries continue following the exponential growth curve they've been on then there probably will be in the next decade or so (if not sooner).

[dead]

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#85

Post by 2ndorderthought »

bluGill wrote: post #65
2ndorderthought wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China invested hugely into renewable energy. Their grid is strong. Ours is falling apart and our renewable energy contracts keep getting shredded. Gas powered data centers is beyond dystopian

That doom take has a few roots in truth, but it is mostly false. Our grid for the most part is very good and improving. A lot of the gloom is it is good for today, but here is why we are trying to expand it anyway - that is the gloom itself is helpful to get the needed changes made. There is a lot of renewable energy in the US, and more is built all the time.

It's really not "doom" it's reality. Highly recommend googling the state of the us grid. It's under funded otherwise data centers would not be running on gas. Similarly one of the biggest anticipated bottlenecks for new data centers is power right now.

https://www.fpri.org/article/2025/11/data-centers-at-risk-th...

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/04/27/opinion/elect...

Although renewables are on the rise in use, huge projects have recently been cancelled in favor for gas. Meanwhile the us is going around blowing up and encouraging other gas producing nations to blow up gas infrastructure.

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5851702-trump-...

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2026/04/...

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/15/how-successful-is-...

It's only doom if we willfully do nothing to make it better or ignore it until it becomes a problem we can no longer fix.

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#86

Post by lpcvoid »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #56
lpcvoid wrote: post #5

I hope the AI bubble bursts before our earth is too hot to survive on for millions of people.

Not to be a doomer but I'm confident we passed the point of no return decades ago.

Probably yeah, but we could at least try to not make it worse, though even that seems very hard for the tech grifters in silicon valley.

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#87

Post by red75prime »

konschubert wrote: post #43
aresant wrote: post #9

The AI data center narrative is the perfect storm: First most of the data center build out is happening in areas that have had little other opportunity so local resistance is muted. Abilene, Texas is referenced and is the kind of place my grandfather would lovingly say is where you go to learn to be a “dirt farmer” Second, every environmentalist in the US is fighting 100 different battles with the most anti-regulatio…

Abilene, Texas is also a great place to build a solar power plant with some batteries and reduce the gas bills for these datacenters. EDIT: I am not suggesting that they don’t build gas turbines or go off grid. I’m saying they can save fuel by using solar when it’s there.

Some batteries? Battery-backed solar has the highest cost as a baseload power source due to high intermittency of solar power.

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#88

Post by raddan »

Newlaptop wrote: post #77
melling wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t forget environmentalists have been fighting against nuclear energy for decades. Update: Since I’m being downvoted I’m going to add a little sting: Good luck with your solar power web servers and skipping flights. Poor judgement really does have a price. It’s now inevitable that it’s going to get a bit warmer… everywhere. We’ll be lucky to hit Net Zero by 2100.

"Environmentalists" is a large, diverse group and nuclear energy has been a controversial topic splitting the group for decades. Many environmentalists are pro-nuclear, and viewed exclusively through an environmental lens, nuclear is likely the best energy source. Other people share the "environmentalist" label because they care about clean air, unpolluted rivers, biodiversity, climate change, etc but they oppose nuc…

Good reply; factual. But in case you are not aware, “Democrat party” is a bit of a slur [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democrat_Party_(epithet)

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#89

Post by loudmax »

monegator wrote: post #15
twoodfin wrote: post #4

Very quick Googling suggests Wired’s estimate would be ~1.9% of US emissions. AI data center investment is, at core, a bet on increasing the productivity of labor. That’s what businesses will pay for, and what will earn the big money. If US labor productivity rises by more than 2%—and implicit in the size of this bet is a guess much higher—US carbon intensity goes down correspondingly, and these data centers end up a…

> If US labor productivity rises by more than 2%—and implicit in the size of this bet is a guess much higher—US carbon intensity goes down correspondingly, and these data centers end up as a win for the climate I can promise you it won't happen in a million years. More productivity lends to more exploitation, because you can do more with the same unit of work, instead of getting the same result with less work.. Or at…

Or the third solution: a carbon tax.

That is a tough sell in the current environment. It's a regressive tax, so opposed on both ends of the political spectrum. People on the far right don't believe in climate change, and people on the far left don't believe in market efficiency. With 20% of the world's oil flow crimped in the Strait of Hormuz for who knows how long, higher energy prices is the last thing people want to contemplate.

In the longer run, a carbon tax is the best option. The fossil fuel price shock is a strong signal to produce energy through other means. There are major engineering initiatives around developing cheaper and safer nuclear energy. and it's cheaper now to deploy a solar farm than a coal plant.

A carbon tax would raise money to pay off national debts and encourage consumers and producers to figure out the most efficient way to accomplish their needs while minimizing their carbon footprint. It's a tough sell today, but this is they way to go for a better quality of life tomorrow.

Re: New gas-powered data centers could emit more greenhouse gases than whole nations

#90

Post by 2ndorderthought »

toast0 wrote: post #75
2ndorderthought wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China invested hugely into renewable energy. Their grid is strong. Ours is falling apart and our renewable energy contracts keep getting shredded. Gas powered data centers is beyond dystopian

If you're worried abour grid health, how is adding distributed generation colocated with new loads dystopian? Sure, it would be nice to be able to build more transmission lines and power stations wherever it makes sense for engineering to build them in order to build a strong grid. But that's hard to do with strong private land ownership and required environmental impact reporting. Something something texas avoiding…

It's unsustainable and bad for the local environments surrounding it. How many people need to die so people can chatgpt a social media post or summarize an article? These are real unanswered questions we are facing because the US has inadequate energy infrastructure.

https://sustainabilitydialogue.uchicago.edu/news/data-center...

You ever lose power and run a generator? The stink and sound is awful. Imagine powering more houses than there are in a suburban town with gas? Imagine doing that in hundreds of thousands of locations across the us. It's a dystopian thought.

I agree it is hard to stand up an effective grid to sustain technological innovations and products. It sounds like something we needed to be ready for like other countries are. Or maybe something that should happen first in order to be responsible and get ready for the future.

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