Trump and the Energy Industry Are Eager to Power AI With Fossil Fuels

The industry finds a voluntary partner in the Trump administration. Since its entry into office, Trump has used AI as a lever to open opportunities for fossil fuels, including a well -publicized effort to relying coal with more computing power. The summit, which was organized by the Republican senator (and the former CEO of hedge funds), Dave McCormick, clearly reflected the priorities of the administration in this regard: no representative of any wind or solar company was present on any of the public panels.

Technological companies, which have expressed their interest in using any cheap power available for AI and discreetly postponed some of the administration’s anti-renewable posts, are not necessarily on the same wavelength as the Trump administration. Among the announcements made at the top, there was an investment of $ 3 billion in Google hydroelectricity.

This request is not necessarily motivated by a major concern for the climate – many technology giants have resumed their climate commitments in recent years, because their concentration on AI has been sharpened, but rather an economy. Financial analyst Lazard said last month that the installation of solar panels and batteries on the scale of public services is even cheaper than the construction of natural gas plants, even without tax incentives. The gas infrastructure is also faced with a global shortage that makes time scales to set up a very different energy production.

“The waiting list for a new turbine is five years,” says Williams-Derry. “If you want a new solar factory, you call China, you say:” I want more solar energy “.”

Given the ideological split at the top, things sometimes became a little embarrassing. On a panel, the energy secretary Chris Wright, who led a hydraulic fracturing company before coming to the federal government, explained at length how the Obama and Biden administrations were on a “crazy energy train”, mocking the support of these administrations in wind and solar. Speaking directly after Wright, the CEO of Blackrock, Larry Fink, admitted that Solar would probably support the distributable gas in the AI diet. Incredibly, the member of the Woods panel, the CEO of Exxonmobil, then paid part of the lip service at the idea of reducing the emissions heard throughout the event. (Woods praised the carbon capture and storage activity of the giant giant giant.)

However, the media threshing gear, for the most part, went well, with everyone to agree on one thing: we will need a lot of power, and soon. Blackstone CEO Jonathan Gray said that AI could help drive “40 or 50% more electricity consumption in the next decade”, while Porat, from Google, said the projections of certain economists according to which AI could add 4 dollars billions to the American economy by 2030.

It is easy to find any variety of titles or reports – often based on projections produced by private companies – project massive growth figures for AI. “I see all these projections with great skepticism,” explains Jonathan Koomey, researcher and computer consultant who contributed to research on AI and power. “I do not think that anyone who has an idea, even a few years consequently, how much the electrical data centers will use.”