Hacker News Reader

Comment by idiotsecant | Hacker News Reader

The major tech companies are all scrambling to snap up cheap energy right now. The result is that we are dumping a whole lot of additional carbon in red states and adding a while lot of additional extremely expensive per MWh sources in blue states. In both cases, the winners will be tech company shareholders and the losers will be the people who actually live in these communities who will end up with dirtier, more expensive power.

View on HN

The losers are going to be the energy companies who think they’re getting long-term energy sales but probably won’t be, since these techniques will get more efficient.

The techniques will get more efficient, but the quantity of training will increase monotonically. We aren't going to use less energy overall. The ratepayers are absolutely the ones who will lose out on this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

People using consumer generative AIs are already using it for free, or very cheaply. It may be hard for falling costs to drive more demand.

The demand for energy will never go down, the more we can produce the more we will use.

The article says

> Electricity demand in the U.S. held steady for 15 years but, last year, it increased by 3%— marking the fifth-highest rise this century. More jumps are projected for years to come.

https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...

Total electricity generated has been relatively flat for a couple decades.

Surely EVs would change the equation. Also increasing installation of heat pumps vs gas heating.

Perhaps, my point was an electricity supplier that invested a ton of money in the early 2000s assuming that aggregate demand will keep growing forever would have been in for a rough time.

A variety of factors may or may not make a future where aggregate electricity demand would increases, or stagnates, or even declined.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com