AI Is Shattering Hope of a Net Zero Future [video] | Hacker News Reader

AI Is Shattering Hope of a Net Zero Future [video]

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12 pointscaustic19 comments

There is apparently an inexhaustible corps of these innumerate bozos. Computers simply do not use that much energy, even in aggregate, AI is a small piece of what people do with computers, and computers either are or can easily be powered by renewables.

By contrast there are 25000 civil aircraft in services, none of them are or could be powered by renewables, and every single one of them uses as much energy as a cloud datacenter. If anyone thought we were going "net zero" with all these airplanes they were mistaken.

Yes, the climate boogeyman shows up as a common anti-tech trope since most people don’t look into the breakdown of emissions. Basically everything in direct consumer control pales in comparison to transit (car/truck/boat/plane).

Speed and scale has a good breakdown: https://speedandscale.com/tracker/

Plus most new AI datacenters are trying to go pure nuclear wherever possible

I don't think there is any sensible way to defend that last sentence, unless stretching the definition of "trying" to its limit.

The cloud uses a lot of energy. They can use renewable energy but they aren't. No I dodn't ask for AI either. So far it's been just a neat toy but not really useful to me. Maybe you should get outside of your bubble.

> The cloud uses a lot of energy. They can use renewable energy but they aren't.

Do you have a source for that? In 2022, 64% of Google's data center energy was carbon free [1]. I was not able to find similar numbers for Microsoft or Amazon, but they have significant green energy investments as well [2][3].

My perception is that Google is the leader in this space but I don't have data to back that up.

[1] https://sustainability.google/progress/energy/

[2] https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/explore/global-infrastruct...

[3] https://aws.amazon.com/sustainability/

I think Apple is, partly because they outsource a lot of their energy to the other clouds, partly because they have stronger PPAs with actual solar power plants.

According to statista, the leaders in cloud marketshare are (in order): AWS, Azure, and GCP [1]. I don't believe Apple has any significant cloud offering.

There is a question about the sustainability of consumer electronic devices but that's a whole different can of worms. As an aside, I appreciate how Apple pioneered long support commitments in phones.

[1] https://www.statista.com/chart/18819/worldwide-market-share-...

Apple does have four large data centers in America and one in Europe. Their first-party datacenter energy footprint is about 10% as large as Google's, and they claim to have 100% renewable inputs. This is a brilliant PR strategy because Apple is a huge customer of GCP, AWS, and Azure for cloud storage and other cloud services on behalf of their users, but all that energy shows up on Google's, Amazon's, and Microsoft's sustainability reports.

FWIW, at 6:28 of the linked-to video is a bar chart of CO2 emissions for Google and how it is increasing due to integrating AI into their products.

Source is Google’s 2024 Environmental Report at https://sustainability.google/reports/google-2024-environmen...

"In 2023, our total GHG emissions increased 13% year-over-year, partially driven by a 37% year-over-year increase in our Scope 2 (market-based) emissions."

I see it uses "Carbon removal credits to neutralize our residual emissions". I think carbon credits are a scam. Just like how using 1 GWhr of power in the US while buying 1 GWhr of power in New Zealand, and calling that 100% renewable energy purchasing, would also be a scam.

In any case, suppose it was all 100% clean energy all throughout, with no carbon credits at all.

What that means is that Google can use it's monopoly/market dominance to outbid other users.

What, you can't afford clean power at the rate that Google can pay, so you've got to run your CPAP machine on fossil fuels? You should be ashamed of ruining the planet like that.

In 2023 highlights your link says: " We maintained 64% carbon- free energy, on average, across every grid where we operate—even as our electricity use increased."

Yes, and ..?

The terms 'using more carbon-free power' and 'using more fossil power' are not exclusive.

Their CO2 emissions are increasing, and that's all that matters.

So is your argument that we need to cut back on air travel first?

Or that we need to cut back on air travel while also reducing CO2 emissions from data centers, with more emphasis on cutting back on air travel?

No, my argument is that this video is false from its very first frame. There is no sense in which humans were on a path to net zero.

The first frame "we were on track for fossil fuel use to top out". That's not net zero.

All I see is a hope for net zero future, and nowhere that we were on a path to net zero.

There is no path to net zero that doesn't involve carbon capture, and carbon capture won't happen at scale until someone figures out how to make money off of it.

Okay .... so until then we stick our heads in the sand?

No additional regulations on tech and energy use? Continued subsidizes for oil and gas extraction? Nothing at all until someone cracks carbon capture?

Because it seems like hoping for a Hail Mary is either very optimistic or so pessimistic that you've given up.

Wow you are projecting a lot of assumptions on to me.

I said we can't solve net zero until we solve economically sustainable carbon capture, nothing about sticking heads in the sand.

My opinions of each solution you proposed depends on the details. For example it's easy for me to say yeah no subsidies for oil and gas extraction, but if Texas wants to subsidize it locally as a net boost to their economy then I have no influence over that and it's a waste of my time and skills to spend any time trying to prevent that, especially because I don't live in Texas.

And if anything I'm advocating for more people to work on economically viable carbon capture, not for us to do nothing.

So my answer in all cases is going to be some version of "spend your time working the problem from wherever you get the most leverage".

Carbon neutral jet fuel is a thing, but believe me, there will soon be more AI data centers than commercial jet aircraft. Far more. It will be an arms race such as the world has never seen.

If anything AI is pushing the market to re-discover nuclear at scale again.

This video is just another degrowther canard.

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