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> Datacenters are like a tiny blip on emissions plots

Maybe in 2023, but what about now?

You think we’ve built that many data centers next to coal fired power plants that the emissions have gotten anywhere close to the emissions of all the iron smelters and the billions of people that commute in gas cars?

We could triple the data centers since 2023 and run them all on coal or natural gas and then maybe they’d even show up as a significant slice on these pie charts.

Our bubbles have blinded us to the scale of the real problem.

I'm curious what part of the charts would data centers fall under?

I'm assuming it would be under the Energy emissions category, but I didn't find anything particular around data centers or "technology" or "internet" or something like that.

Would it fall under "Electricity and heat"? Or just general "Buildings"? or "Commercial buildings"? Or am I way off base?

A late 2024 international report https://www.iea.org/reports/energy-and-ai/energy-demand-from... predicts that by 2035, datacenter electricity usage will increase from 2024's 1.5% to 2-4.4% of global usage. Currently about 1/3 of datacenter electricity usage is for AI (0.5% of that 1.5%), though that will presumably increase.

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