Comment by asats
1 day ago
Yeah, data-centers are definitely the worst thing happening to the planet. You got your priorities straight.
AI data centers are what, half a percent of the world electricity consumption, if that, and an even smaller fraction of the total energy?
Growth trend matters more than absolute present value.
Data centres generally had been seeing energy use growing at 12% annually, or with a doubling time of 5.8 years (about 5 years 10 months). AI is accelerating that trend.
In the United States, power consumption by data centres is on course to account for almost half of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030. Driven by AI use, the US economy is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminium, steel, cement and chemicals. In advanced economies more broadly, data centres are projected to drive more than 20% of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030, putting the power sector in those economies back on a growth footing after years of stagnating or declining demand in many of them.
<https://www.iea.org/news/ai-is-set-to-drive-surging-electric...>
>or with a doubling time of 5.8 years
So that in ~6 years they will account for 1%, and still a fraction of the percent of the world total energy use?
No, in ~6y they will count for 1% of present day consumption. The rest of the quote compares it to where we expect steel manufacturing projections. It all reads like something that seeks to influence rather than inform.
Modulo, as noted, AI is accelerating that trend.
1% is a lot.
>Growth trend matters more than absolute present value.
Only if the current absolute present value is enough that the resulting trend matters.
It was only 2 weeks ago when someone posted an article claiming data centers worldwide use 24x less water than golf courses worldwide.
And I mean, you need somewhere to collate all that climate data? You need telecoms to let scientists communicate?
>Driven by AI use, the US economy is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for processing data than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminium, steel, cement and chemicals. In advanced economies more broadly, data centres are projected to drive more than 20% of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030, putting the power sector in those economies back on a growth footing after years of stagnating or declining demand in many of them.
If horse use trends continue at their current pace, London will be covered in 20 meters of horse manure by the end of the decade.
> In advanced economies more broadly, data centre's are projected to drive more than 20% of the growth in electricity demand between now and 2030
20% of the growth isn't much overall either is it? That's likely assuming that the million and 1 spruiked projects actually get off the ground.
Only if...
No.
If the trend continues.
Exponential growth, a/k/a constant periodic percentage growth (per day, month, year, etc.), increases rapidly. Differences (or errors) in magnitude measurement disappear rapidly: a factor of two in a single generation, a factor of ten in about three generations, a factor of 100 in less than 7, a factor of one thousand in fewer than 10.
What matters is that the growth rate continue.
Which of course, it usually doesn't. Most growth trends follow a sigmoid rather than exponential curve (initially), or more complex longer-term dynamics.
The point of your infamous horse quote was less to show that the Earth would be covered in horses (or their effluvia), than that the observed current trend could not reasonably continue. And as some of us are aware, it didn't, due to the adoption of ... the petroleum-fueled automobile ... which has some bearing on this particular HN post itself.
Had the automobile not come along, or petroleum reserves proved much more limited as was widely believed at the time[1], large horse-congested cities such as London, New York, and Chicago would likely have seen sharply slowed or even reversed growth under negative hygiene pressures. It was the multiple factors of growth in fossil fuel use (displacing horses, and their effluvia), development of sewerage systems, solid waste disposal, food safety and purity, refrigeration, and public health which turned cities from death zones to attractive living places, rather than merely drawing desperate immigrants through high wages amidst rampant rural and foreign poverty.
But the point remains that the sustained growth rate matters far more than the starting point.
2030 is three and a half years away. That's soon.
________________________________
Notes:
1. It wasn't until the 1930s with the discovery of the East Texas Oil Field in the US and of vast fields in Saudi Arabia that it seemed likely that oil was more than a short-term resource. In marked contrast to, say, the short-lived Indian natural gas boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_gas_boom>. Daniel Yergin's The Prize is an excellent history of the industry's growth, though I disagree strongly with the author's strong allegiance to it.
4 replies →
Because GPUs grow on trees...
> TSMC’s manufacturing success comes at an ecological cost. The company accounts for around 150,000 tonnes of water per day and 6.4% of the national electricity consumption.
https://taiwaninsight.org/2025/11/05/water-nexus-can-semicon...
It would be great for you to experience living close to one of these data centers [0]. Maybe you'd have a consideration outside of your own myopic view then.
[0] https://www.selc.org/news/xai-built-an-illegal-power-plant-t...
Yeah, as opposed to the very pleasant living by the side of a steel mill and an oil refinery.
What is myopic is chasing social media "evil of the month" trends, instead of looking at the actual data.
Yeah, except those aren't being built in areas where people already live. You do realize that a refinery lasts 50+ years and the OECD already has surplus capacity? So why would there be significant spend here? Meanwhile DC starts totaled $25B+ in January of this year [0].
Maybe you should try providing some data given your comment, I'd be interested in hearing about all of these refineries and steel mills being produced!
[0] https://news.constructconnect.com/march-2026-data-center-rep...
It feels like you're being sarcastic but "AI data centers are what, half a percent of the world electricity consumption" -- 0.5% of the global total is huge!