Two weeks ago, we reported how artificial intelligence (AI), cryptocurrency mining and clean energy production are powering the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or simply the 4Rs, and how data and connectivity, analytics, human-machine interaction , and driving disruptive trends including growth. Advances in Robotics Unfortunately, these secular megatrends are pushing the American power grid to its limits.
According to Sridhar Sisto, Vice President of Artificial Intelligence Schneider Electric (OTCPK:SBGSF), excluding China, AI represents 4.3 GW of global electricity demand, and could grow nearly fivefold by 2028. Another analysis predicts that demand for AI will grow exponentially, increasing at least 10-fold between 2023 and 2026.
AI tasks typically demand more powerful hardware than traditional computing tasks. Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining shows no signs of slowing down, with mining rates reaching 565 transactions per second (EH/s), five times higher than three years ago.
Bitcoin mining consumes 148.63 TWh of electricity per year and emits 82.90 Mt of CO2 per year, comparable to Malaysia’s electricity consumption. And, data center demand isn’t helping matters at all. Data center storage capacity will grow from 10.1 zettabytes (ZB) in 2023 to 21.0 ZB in 2027, good for a CAGR of 18.5%.
Analysis by Boston Consulting Group predicts that data center electricity consumption will triple by 2030, enough to power 40 million American homes.
The situation is already getting out of hand: US electricity demand has started to increase for the first time in 15 years. “We are running out of energy as a countryMichael Khoo, director of the climate disinformation program at Friends of the Earth and co-author of a report on AI and climate, told CNN.
To be fair, AI has been touted as one of the key technologies that will help tackle climate change. The revolutionary technology is already being used to detect pollution, predict weather, monitor snowmelt and map deforestation. A recent report released by Google and published by Boston Consulting Group claims that AI can help reduce 10 percent of planet-warming pollution.
Unfortunately, past trends in technology development suggest that AI disadvantages are likely to outweigh benefits as far as electricity demand is concerned.
“Efficiency gains have never outweighed the energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining. When we make certain goods and services more efficient, we see an increase in demand,As Alex de Vries, a data scientist and researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, points out.
At this point, almost everyone agrees that we are unable to develop renewable energy plants fast enough to meet this electricity demand. So, what other choice do we have, other than to say let’s build more natural gas and fossil fuel power plants?
Enter nuclear fusion, which scientists have long considered the holy grail of clean and nearly limitless energy. Nuclear fusion AI is the ultimate solution to the energy puzzle, says Sam Altman, head of ChatGPT creator OpenAI.“There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough, we need fusion,” Altman said in a January interview. Altman reiterated this view a few weeks ago when podcaster and computer scientist Lex Friedman asked him about the AI ​​energy problem.
Blue sky thinking
Unfortunately, Altman’s proposal may be no closer to building a commercial nuclear fusion reactor than it is to harvesting energy from black holes, and we may be more optimistic about harvesting energy from black holes. Another matter of heavenly thinking.
For decades, nuclear fusion has been considered the “holy grail” of clean energy. If we are able to harness its power, it will mean endless clean and sustainable energy. It’s what powers stars, and the theory is that it could be successfully applied to nuclear reactors—without the risk of catastrophic meltdowns.
Scientists have been working on a viable nuclear fusion reactor since the 1950s – always hopeful that a breakthrough is just around the corner. Unfortunately, the running joke has become that a practical nuclear fusion power plant could be decades or even centuries away, with milestone after milestone falling over and over again.
Again to be fair, there are some promising glimpses into the possibilities. Last year, a nuclear fusion reactor in California produced 3.15 megajoules of energy using only 2.05 megajoules of energy input, a rare instance where a fusion experiment produced more energy than that. The majority of fusion experiments are energy negative, taking more energy than they are, thus rendering them useless as a form of electricity generation. Despite growing hopes that fusion could soon play a role in ending climate change by providing clean power for energy-hungry technologies like AI, the world “Still far from commercial fusion, it can no longer help us with the climate crisisAnika Khan, Research Fellow in Nuclear Fusion at the University of Manchester, said Guardian After the initial progress of December.
You don’t have to look far to get a healthy dose of reality check.
For decades, 35 countries have collaborated on the biggest and most ambitious scientific experiment ever: the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the largest fusion power machine ever built. ITER is planned to generate plasma at temperatures 10x hotter than the Sun’s core, and generate net energy for seconds at a time. As is common with many nuclear power projects, ITER is already facing massive cost overruns that call into question its future viability. W
When the ITER project officially began operations in 2006, its international partners agreed to fund an estimated €5 billion (then $6.3 billion) for a 10-year project that would see the reactor operational by 2016. I will be seen online. Charles SeifThe director of New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism has sued ITER over the lack of transparency over costs and continued delays. According to him, the latest official cost estimate for the project is now more than €20 billion ($22 billion), and the project is no closer to achieving its key objectives. To make matters worse, none of the key players in ITER, including the US Department of Energy, could give a solid answer as to whether the team could overcome technical challenges or estimate additional delays, much less additional costs.
Source: Scientific American
Saif notes that while Notre Dame took a century to complete, it was finally used for its intended purpose less than a generation after construction began. However, he concludes by saying that the same can be said of ITER, which looks less like a cathedral and more like a mausoleum.
By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com
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