Cross posted from https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75575038
Burning one cubic foot of natural gas releases the equivalent of 60 grams of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, including extraction, processing, and distribution, according to the IEA. The additional demand from data centers will generate 1 million metric tons more greenhouse gas pollution daily. That’s about 12% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions today.
This is why people who claim that AI has its uses are always dead wrong. Sure it can help you write sloppy code ten times as fast, or make you “research” (lease out your brain) things slightly faster (minus all the factchecking to see if it hallucinates). It may even help medical research, but all these advantages, which are all “this can be done slightly faster”, does not make up for the fact that it significantly contributes to burning up our planet a lot faster than it is already on its way to doing.
We can live without any of its advantages, but we literally cannot live with all its disadvantages.
They could be running on renewables if someone hadn’t literally spent billions to stop already planned projects.
The oil lobby fucked us, this is a scape goat. Natural gas consumption was already sky high before AI. Any effort put into moving away from dirty energy is constantly sabotaged.
This is why they want the “AI race.” The AI tech sector is sponsored by the fossil fuel sector.
