Unless I'm missing something, it is entirely possible for emissions to go up, while efficiency *also* goes up, if total consumption is increasing.
So much for green Google ... Emissions up 48% since 2019
With six years left for Google to meet its 2030 "net zero" climate commitment, the web giant has admitted its carbon emissions are rising. In an environmental report [PDF] published on Tuesday, Google admitted that its greenhouse gas emissions rose 48 percent since 2019. In 2023 alone, the search giant's carbon footprint …
COMMENTS
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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 00:46 GMT diodesign
Of course
You're not missing anything. Emissions are going up, making the goal of net zero harder, tho Google reckons the increases will be offset by greater efficiencies driven by AI. As the report states:
"As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may be challenging due to increasing energy demands from the greater intensity of AI compute"
C.
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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 06:54 GMT LybsterRoy
Re: You may have misread
"generating more efficient routes for automobiles."
Not sure how that's going to work unless all automobiles are FSD or we have a computer on board checking the route every few hundred yards and recalculating to see if there's a better one. I wonder how many will drive into the nearest river rather than following an inefficient route that leads to a bridge? Or "this is the most efficient route, please ignore the 27 mile tailback"
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Thursday 4th July 2024 11:42 GMT Mage
Re: Of course
The fad for rather useless "AI" that only gives good results when basically plagiarising (A search engine that gives no sources or source links) may soon peak and decline. I hope so.
People seem to have totally unrealistic ideas as to how it produces useful content. When the public and "investors"* are educated the big guys will mostly ditch it. See Google Graveyard.
Icon, because it's vanity that should go on a bonfire.
[* What's the difference between a real investor and speculator?]
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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 08:10 GMT Like a badger
I would have thought we'd have learned our lessons about giant power-hogs that add nothing of value to the world...
Google has learned its lesson, that greater power use equates to greater revenues to Google.
Google sells advertising placement to other companies, and all those emissions are down to the tools by which Google persuades companies that it understands and can identify potential end customers. Curiously, since economic growth has been very poor in most developed nations, it's quite clear that Google (and digital advertising in general) isn't creating value for those companies who pay for it, merely consuming a marketing budget that has to be spent.
The companies who pay Google get their money from the public, so AI and big data are merely a wealth transfer tool from our pocket to Google, yet without the helpful side effect of either reducing business costs or supporting economic growth, and at the same time undermining potentially useful services (such as local news) that relied upon advertising.
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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 08:45 GMT Charlie Clark
It's a false equivalence: the efficiency of cryptomining must decrease over time as the complexity increases.
Here, hardware efficiency is increasing but consumption is increasing faster. We don't have numbers for the article, but I'd expect YouTube alone to be driving much of the consumption as video resolutions have increased a lot since 2019. Fortunately for Google, it's able to offload costs to its customers, which makes paying for compensatory measures: certificates, investments, etc. easier. And that's the real issue: providers like Google and Microsoft are currently able to avoid proper carbon-pricing. I suspect they know change is coming and what they can't lobby against, they will prepare to deal with: they have sufficient capital to buy generation capacity outright and arrange data centres around it.
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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 14:51 GMT Like a badger
"I suspect they know change is coming and what they can't lobby against, they will prepare to deal with: they have sufficient capital to buy generation capacity outright and arrange data centres around it."
That's a very expensive solution, since they'd need to be 100% self sufficient in low carbon power, and no matter how you do it that doesn't come cheap. If they are using renewables with grid top up, then the grid pricing models will brutally punish them for being out of balance because they'll struggle to forecast their grid demand. As most developed nations double down on their net zero hobby horse regardless of the cost implications I can't see that there's any chance Big Tech will avoid shouldering some of the cost, especially if Big Tech power demand is growing without any obvious benefits to society.
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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 06:39 GMT darklord
Please tell me we didnt see that train coming!!! oh Please Please Please Sir can have some More !!!!!!!!
Data center's aren't green and will be placed in places which already have a low carbon emission impact next as to offset all that nasty CO2 the power consumption required to emit as Solar ,wind and other renewables cant deliver.
Just like Ford has done and i suspect many other manufacturers rather than reduce the carbon emission's due to manufacturing processes, Data storage is a commodity whether you like it or not.
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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 10:56 GMT VonLugersButter
That train keeps coming though, and it's called Jevon's paradox. Have a look at Dr Peter Garraghan's talk on the matter, basically if we make systems more efficient we just fill it up or build more systems.
The whole video is good but the reference is around the 20 minute mark...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYVb2Lo3Jtw&list=LL&index=136&t=1280s&ab_channel=LancasterUniversity
The really depressing thing about this is that not all energy consumed is going for a greater good or scientific endeavor. A significant chunk has to be going towards the same-old thing, popping ads up in your face to make you buy something you really don't need.
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Thursday 4th July 2024 05:58 GMT Badgerfruit
Re: Ask AI how to reduce emissions
Although a grim sounding outcome, it reminds me of bluey and the daddy robot episode.
Playroom is always a mess?
Solution, get rid of kids who make it a mess.
Planet a mess?
Solution .....
Another poster said it (and is very much downvoted for some reason?), we are trashing the one and only planet we have in order to make rich people even richer. It is literally madness at this point but I see no end other than THE end.
Could it be why the super rich are looking to Mars, they KNOW this planet is headed for environmental disaster the likes never seen before, and so are packing their bags? Building bunkers. Hiring security. Asking openly how to stop people turning on them in the event of the apocalypse (that they helped create).
Ultimately, who is to profit from AI? The workers it's being trained to replace? I don't think so.
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Wednesday 3rd July 2024 14:09 GMT BPontius
How much longer is this farce going to continue? Stop this nonsense and accept the fact we live in a carbon based world, it is chemically and physically impossible to avoid carbon emissions! Mining, processing, manufacturing and producing products will generate carbon emissions and no amount of new math or fudging of the data will change that. The other insane notion is everyone can be forced into electric cars, but ignore the fact there is insufficient infrastructure and we are simply trading the exhaust of carbon emissions for the exhaust of tons more e-waste that is going to poison and pollute the planet in far worse ways than CO2, methane or water vapor. Since there are no big profits in reclamation or recycling of e-waste there is very little hope of solving the problem (we struggle to recycle more than 30% of paper and plastic), so we'll give our rose colored glasses a good polish and carry on with business as usual.
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Thursday 4th July 2024 07:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
A pile of lithium and other materials sitting in a corner awaiting appropriate re-use or recycling does not generate CO2. Leaving aside newer battery technologies being developed
Electricity generation and distribution when gas powered is more efficient than isolating certain petrochemical fractions, driving them to various locations and then burning them with only 40% turned into motive power and the rest into heat.
But we can reduce our reliance on conventional carbon sources, and seek to remove carbon. Net Zero is keeping carbon dioxide production and removal in balance rather than letting it run away from us because it's "too hard"
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Thursday 4th July 2024 09:54 GMT Pete 2
It's a steel
> the search giant's carbon footprint topped 14.3 million tons of CO2 equivalent
So a few million tonnes of CO2 more that the Port Talbot (not really a 'bot) steel works.
With a capacity of five million tons of steel, this amounts to up to 11 million tons of CO2 per year, almost 3% of the UK’s total emissions.