Comment by nateglims
1 year ago
Energy production capacity in the US is relatively flat for the last couple of decades. The renewable installation is offsetting the decommission of coal. The capacity installed in China is not really accessible to Open AI due to recent security competition (both export restrictions on AI and a desire to import less energy). The capital costs of power are also quite high so I think he is pretty accurate considering the expectations of a startup to hockey stick.
https://www.publicpower.org/system/files/documents/Americas_... via https://www.publicpower.org/resource/americas-electricity-ge... disagrees with you even in the last decade. And the future seems mostly solar:
> This report also analyzes prospective generation capacity in four categories — under construction, permitted, application pending, and proposed. More than 466,000 MW of new generation capacity is under development in the United States — a 13% increase over 2022. Sixty-one percent of capacity most likely to come online, permitted plants and plants that are under construction, are in solar.
China's growth in power capacity is non-trivially due to increasing demand. If the US or Europe or wherever suddenly wanted to build XXX GW per year, they could (modulo bureaucracy, which is very real).
I mispoke about capacity, but adding nameplace capacity hasn't increased the total energy generated, we've been sitting around 4T kWh for a while: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-...
The US or EU could likely do it, yes. If someone is willing to put up the capital to do it. The point of Sam Altman's statement is that he wants someone to do it.