Comment by throw1235435
6 hours ago
Generally most technologies have increased the use of energy and therefore accelerate climate change. May be an unpopular opinion but in general more energy demand and ways to use energy increases climate emissions - they are strongly correlated even with renewables coming on stream.
AI, being the super hungry energy monster it is right now, in my view accelerates this trend not reverses it. Even with renewables the need for reliable, stable power in a dense form (data centres use A LOT of power per sqm) means lots of land clearing, energy for construction, cooling/pumping, chip manufacturing and other uses. All want stable quick to deploy power due to the AI race (e.g. fossil fuels).
AI's energy use is growing, but it's still a small part of overall energy use.
Data centres use only a small amount of land in the grand scheme of things. You have a lot more land clearing for most other use cases.
Data centres are also more than happy to use electricity from renewable sources, they don't really care where the electricity comes from.
You can run a data centre on mostly solar and wind power plus batteries. If you need a gas-fired peaker plant three times a year to keep the data centres running, well that means your peaker plant still only produces emissions three times a year.
Sure, if you conjure the materials for the data centers out of thin air.
They also consume deinking water, because it's too expensive to make them with closed loop cooling.