Essay by Eric Worrall

“… plans to decommission several coal plants have been delayed … 20 per cent of global electricity use by 2030. … “

AI is bad for the environment, and the problem is bigger than energy consumption

Published: January 30, 2025 2.43am AEDT
Hamish van der Ven
Assistant Professor of Sustainable Business Management of Natural Resources, University of British Columbia

Artificial intelligence technologies, like chatbots, are attracting growing scrutiny for their voracious energy demands. However, energy consumption is only one part of their broader environmental impact.

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Late last year, ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot run by OpenAI, celebrated its second birthday. In its brief existence, the platform has amassed over 300 million weekly users who send roughly one billion messages to the chatbot per day.

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Elsewhere in tech, other companies marked less savoury milestones. Alphabet — the parent company of Google — recently announced that its GHG emissions are up 48 per cent since 2019. At roughly the same time, Microsoft announced that its emissions are up 29 per cent since 2020. 

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The burgeoning AI industry needs so much electricity that plans to decommission several coal plants have been delayed. By some estimates, the collective demand of AI and other digital technologies will constitute 20 per cent of global electricity use by 2030.

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Read more: https://theconversation.com/ai-is-bad-for-the-environment-and-the-problem-is-bigger-than-energy-consumption-247842

Microsoft is re-commissioning Three Mile Island, but how many mothballed nuclear reactors are available? Even gas has limits. It was inevitable they would turn to coal in their hour of need.

The interesting point about this article is the author didn’t even try to claim renewables have a place in this new world order. They’re still fretting about climate change, but nobody is taking their coals, I mean calls.

The green movement is finally being relegated back to its proper place in society – a fringe movement of ignored radicals.