AI, Data Centers, Direct Air Capture, and Renewables

3% of the world’s electricity is used by data centers. That’s up from, well, zero, not too long ago. 

It’s everything from iCloud to websites to cat videos to Instagram reels to Facetime calls. A blog post uses a lot less data than a podcast, which uses less than a video. If you look at files stored on your phone or your Google Drive, you’ll see how much storage space it uses. Many of the cloud storage companies want us to use more storage — it’s probably the reason why they make cameras that can print billboard sized images, and it’s arguably why Apple invented “Live” photos (it adds a small video clip and significantly increases storage requirements over a traditional picture). 

AI is increasing this. A Google search uses 0.3 watts-hours. A ChatGPT inquiry uses 10× that, just for instance. 

The big tech companies are investing heavily in renewables for their data centers, mainly because it’s cheaper, but also because they’re all pledging to reduce their footprints, since their employees and customers demand it. As a result, more than ⅔ of the total US corporate renewables market is data centers. This is doing some good things:

• Driving massive renewable energy scale.
• Improving efficiencies — in storage, transmission, and AI — that will drive energy use per data use down over time, since they are incentivized to do so. 

It is also doing a number of not so good things.

• Making competition for other uses of renewables very high — Project Bison, a DAC project from Carbon Capture, Inc., was “paused” recently, and will at the very least relocate to another state, because it couldn’t procure competitively priced clean energy for its operations in Wyoming, with the state seeing a boom in data centers capitalizing on its significant wind energy resources. 

Join us later today (10 AM PST, 1 PM EST) for a webinar on this topic, as we dive into the significant growth of data centers and the industry’s implications for renewable energy development.

Scroll down into CleanTechnica’s footer to find the green ad graphic for the webinar, and click the image to register. If it doesn’t render, click here.