Datacenters could blow up your electric bill thanks to AI Americans could face a 70 percent hike in their electricity bills by 2030 unless action is taken to boost generation and transmission capacity to satisfy an AI-driven surge in demand from datacenters. This latest warning comes in a report from Washington, D.C.-based think tank the Jack Kemp Foundation (JKF), which says that …
Re wind and solar, I presume the best sites have already been chosen for those, so any additional sites would be less good sites that will have a lower yield for the installed hardware. Solar of course only works during daytime, and wind only works when the wind is blowing, so while we should invest in them, they can never make up 100% of electricity supply.
More gas is obviously going to drive up prices, and it is already difficult enough to find it. Not to mention all the environmental problems.
On the flip side, one might seek to make "AI" more energy efficient ... like by using Q.ANT's Thin-Film Lithium Niobate (TFLN) on Insulator Photonic Processor for real-time AI, now commercially launched, that promises "30 times greater energy efficiency [...] over traditional CMOS tech". Or Blumind's all-analog AI compute with "inferencing performance at up to x1000 lower power than [...] competitors"! Systolic dataflow archs by Cerebras, Tenstorrent, SambaNova, Groq, etc... are also (much?) more power-efficient than GPUs IIRC ...
So I think that the doomsdAIy of energymageddon could be averted if folks would think a bit more before fool-rushing in where heavenlier tech is either already threading or just around the corner. Then again a lot of installed "AI" capacity might never be used at all (because of doubtful usefulness) and could just be plain kept turned off with no noticeable ill effect (as abundantly commented by others, below)!
Then again a lot of installed "AI" capacity might never be used at all (because of doubtful usefulness) and could just be plain kept turned off with no noticeable ill effect (as abundantly commented by others, below)!
Alternatively, there is that staple of SF. So there are multiple AIs all being trained on our personal data to understand and represent us. AIs are rational, can rapidly make correct decisions and with proper data management, not prone to corruption. So AIs would seem perfect for replacing inferior, corruptible intelligences and running the UK. No need to waste billions on MPs, the House of Lords, elections etc. A single AI would be a little risky, but multiple would be safer and more representative. 650 would be excessive, and being an even number risks deadlock situations. So the UK has 4 regions, 6-ish parties amd a few more and individual AIs could be tuned to be representative. I think 13 AIs would be a fine number.
Then we could convert Westminster and other government buildings into apartments, helping to solve the housing crisis and generating revenues instead of just costing the UK taxpayer. I urge everyone to write to their MPs and proposing the UK becomes the first AI-lead democracy. What better way to demonstrate the innovative, technology leader that is the United (and confedarated) Kingdom?
"it says that AI companies should be required to bear the additional costs of the energy they consume to ease the burden on ordinary Americans and small businesses."
This. This right here. If the datacenters' usage is what is driving up demand and prices, make them pay the difference.
Of course, a much better solution is DON'T USE AI.
Good idea, but I am skeptical as to whether it would work in practice.
Here in the UK, we have a big problem with electricity transmission and distribution too. I understand it's even worse in some parts of Europe.
A lot of people seem to be hailing "Locational Pricing" as the solution, but again I am skeptical. It sounds like a way to charge people more if their local grid is overloaded. But the trouble for me is, is it overloaded due to being oversubscribed, or underprovisioned? If the DNOs can underinvest in infrastructure and be allowed to charge customers more for it, then that seems completely backwards to me.
I'm sure someone on these forums who knows more than me can tell us What incentive is there for DNOs to invest in their infrastructure and how Locational Pricing will help or hinder that
What incentive is there for DNOs to invest in their infrastructure and how Locational Pricing will help or hinder that
Incentives? The usual ones. Money. There's an obviously perverse incentive to keep supply barely enough to match demand, and thus prices high. Or just trouser billions in subsidies by building 'renewables' that just increase infrastructure costs. But that's all good because a billion pound cable to an offshore windfarm just gets added to consumers electricity bills, not the wind farm. Locational Pricing is much the same. People in and around London or along the Thames Valley will just see even higher standing charges or unit prices so MS, AlphaGoo, Amazon etc can lock in cheaper prices for their bit & bot barns.
On the plus side, more analysts and the market seem to be asking pointed questions like 'where is the money?', hopefully signalliing the AI bubble might be bursting. Then if more businesses notice that cloudybollocks might not be such a great idea, demand for bit barns might shrink, and supply increase. But then our 'leaders' are still throwing themselves headfirst into 'Net Zero'. If the dreams of decarbonising heating, cooking, transport etc come to pass, we'll need around 3x the generating capacity. So probably more than 3x increase in energy costs. Which would obviously be unsustainable, but when the outcomes of 'Net Zero' can't be measured in either CO2 or temperature terms, the whole thing is rather insane. Trouble is, our 'leaders' don't seem to have noticed this, or are willfully ignoring it.
How would it affect places like Orkney where the grid is constrained in both directions by a pair of 33kV subsea links to the mainland?
When the wind blows, they have to switch off some of their wind turbines because they would overload their connection by exporting too much. When it doesn't blow but it's cold, it is overloaded in the other direction.
Supposing we had locational pricing, they would presumably be paid less for their constrained wind energy and have to pay more for imported energy too. Building a new cable link would reduce their prices, but also reduce profits for the local DNO too, so it's not going to happen is it, because the DNO are the only ones who can build it.
How would it affect places like Orkney where the grid is constrained in both directions by a pair of 33kV subsea links to the mainland?
A modest proposal. Orkney declares independence, then applies to the UN for their slice of this pie-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c8jykpdgr08t
The final draft deal has been published, and covers how much developed countries should give to developing nations to help them tackle climate change.
The headline figure is at least $300bn (about £240bn) a year by 2035, the previous offer stood at $250bn - but this was rejected... The text still includes a wider ambition to try to get to $1.3tn by 2035 – the figure that a UN-backed report recently said developing nations would need from external sources.
The Bbc still doesn't understand the difference between 'need' and 'want'. But £300bn and as a developing nation, Orkney could probably tap the UN for a few billion a year. Which is pretty much how the climate scam started after the UN's Maurice Strong found a few nice ways to cash in from their Oil for Food programe. The sithered across to their 'environment program' and hence the UN wanting more.
But as a developed nation, the UK will have to pay it's 'fair share' into the UN's extortion racket, so we won't be able to afford any electricity for datacentres any more. Or heating, lighting etc etc.
"sounds like a way to charge people more if their local grid is overloaded"
Invert that logic, if my local grid is constrained and unable to meet my increasing requirements (because I now need a HP and two EV chargers) then I should be charged less. That will incentivise the DNO to pull their finger out. The unexpected consequence is that the power leeches may still set up shop and take what they can get at the cheaper rate but potentially not because they are prevented from operating at their preferred scale.
Or how about a fit-for-purpose planning system that requires the stupidly large loads to be located closest to the generators? Instead of building billion dollar cables to move the supply to the M4 corridor, put the data centres on brown field sites in the central belt of Scotland. There are plenty of them and historically they would have been pretty well provisioned for power supply. A few ms extra on the transit links is hardly here nor there for cat videos.
I can see the dichotomy here
energy prices go UP because of AI
make the Data Centres pay more as they are the cause of the rise in energy usage
BUT
it is US using more data, using PC's more that is using more energy ..............
no easy solution, but MAYBE, have it built into the construction contract, that this project is SELF SUFFICIENT in energy needs
and come the day when it is no longer true / viable
either increase power supply / lower power demand
CLOSE said DC build new one that DOES meet that standard
Jack Kemp Foundation? I googled him, all the top hits were about his football career.
So he probably knows a lot about astroturf. From his wiki bio though-
Kemp was the founder and chairman of Kemp Partners, a strategic consulting firm that helps clients achieve both business and public policy goals.
One cheap way to do that is to of course is to set up a 'foundation' or 3 to churn out papers pushing your clients policy goals. Kemp's dead now, but it's much the same as dear'ol Al Gore. Left politics, created a VC biz, pushed a bunch of Inconvenient (and incorrect) Truths to inflate the bubble and watch the money roll in. But-
https://www.jackkempfoundation.org/blog
Doesn't mention this groundbreaking vision and revolutionary idea that err.. datacentres use a lot of power, and basic economics says that if demand > supply, power prices go up. But Jack Kemp's son, Jimmy took over. Kemp Partners doesn't seem active and last I could find, Jimmy was lobbying for this lot-
https://tdinternational.com/what-we-do/strategic-advisory/
There's some excellent scumfuckery going down in Texas where lusers install a smart thermostat and give control of it to the power company for a discount.
Suddenly when a crypto mine moved into one county and signed a sweetheart deal with the company, people in OTHER counties served by the same company started getting their HVAC turned off on 32-40C degree days, so the house is an oven sitting at 28-29C.
Why exactly do fucking cryptocurrency "mines" get priority over fucking ratepayers?
Gotta take advantage of these international trade agreements imho (rather than closing all borders). Plenty of green energy North of the border and just today Hydro-Québec expected to get a 100 MW of allocation back from struggling NorthVolt that could become available to others (Forges de Sorel would like 20 MW of this), including datacenters.
Make nice with the Northern neighbor, build datacenters there, everybody wins! Just don't try contacting them by mail as Canada Post is on strike at this time ...
Well, if Trump doesn't exempt chips from his 10-100% import duty, it will certainly.he cheaper to build data centres in Canada, same as Canadian retail will get a shot in the arm when Americans start cross-border shopping to get their made in China TVs, air condtioners, and electronic toys without a 100% import duty.
Smart people might think that this type of unplanned development is likely to be socially destabilizing. But then we're not ruled by smart people -- history has shown us time and again that greed, the need to grab it all before the other guy does, is pretty much the only motivating factor. The fact that the purpose of all these datacenters is to put scads of people out of work, people who are needed to provide the revenue to justify the building of the data centers in the first place, doesn't factor into anyone's thinking.
This is what government is for. The greedy don't like it because it acts as a check on their ambition -- they've never met a forest they didn't want to clear cut or a sea they didn't want to fish out so they're really annoyed about any public policy that doesn't so much say "No" as "Just wait a minute and think this through". As it is I think that current AI is doomed because the technology is just too energy intensive (and there's likely to endless legal arguments about who "owns" knowledge, everyone plus dog wants to be a gatekeeper / rent collector). The way we're used to resolving these problems is to ignore them but I think this isn't going to work this time.
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