Google falling short of important climate target, cites electricity needs of AI

apnews.com

3 pointsjeffbee5 comments

Wild that as they grow and scale, sustainable or climate-sensitive power can't be sourced or relatively (directly) scaled.

It will be interesting to see over the next few decades if sustainable power sources (arguably Nuclear, especially under the recent Advance Act) won't just be a lagging situation.

75% of the emissions in the report are from "scope 3" which is mostly embodied emissions of equipment. So the necessary sustainable power sources would be in China mainly, not ones serving Google's datacenters.

They are focusing in the press release and the report on DC energy needs though. I see that as foreshadowing that things will be worse going forward.

Maybe because they are trying to influence policy goals? Google is a large customer but it is still a teensy tiny fraction of American electricity consumption. I don't understand why the press has decided that it falls on the information industry alone to decarbonize the US (and global) power grid.

There is no "need" to expend a huge amount of energy running a chatbot that tells people to eat rocks.

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