Mastodawn

Tim Bray Mar 13

RE: https://cosocial.ca/@evan/115580076628853324

This was posted 4 months ago, i.e. forever in LLM time. I would really like to see a fully-worked through analysis of the actual GHG cost of #GenAI in general and for coding applications specifically. Including, obviously, training, data centre infrastructure, silicon fabrication, etc.

The reason: I have trouble reconciling these numbers with the insane volumes of investment capital going into the space.

@timbray my previous job was building greenhouse gas inventories.

Data centres are responsible for about 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions. AI is responsible for about 15% of the data centre emissions, or about 0.15% of global emissions.

People who talk about AI burning up the planet don't spend a lot of time thinking about what's really burning up the planet: fossil fuels for transportation and heating, deforestation, and cattle.

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

@timbray computer usage just isn't as carbon intensive a process as driving a car. Even with hundreds of billions being spent on new data centres, it's not a big part of the global emissions profile.

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

@timbray I think it's a good thing to try to reduce the emissions from data centres and AI. We need to do that with every single human activity that exists.

But I don't think it's fair to say that using AI is a singularly irresponsible activity and morally indefensible on ecological grounds.

Nick Doty Mar 13

@evan @timbray right, we need to reduce emissions in every sector of society. In tech, where we work, AI has led most companies to abandon their promises and increase emissions where they had been on track to reducing them. It's not as significant as transportation or heating or food, but for our industry, it's a huge backwards step, so it makes sense that we would be upset about it.

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

@npdoty @timbray that's a good way to put it!

Cassandra is only carbon now Mar 13

@evan @timbray If we need to do that with every single human activity, why *exempt* AI, when it's badly exacerbating an existing problem?

I think your figures are probably wild underestimates given the corporate secrecy around actual usage, but even so, can we really afford to go 0.15% in the wrong direction on the climate crisis?

lucindacatchlove.bsky.social Mar 13

Yeah, the water usage is a far bigger problem with data centers on the environmental front. It is almost like the energy use drama is intended as a diversion from the real issue, our very real global water crisis. But there's also stuff like Elon illegally using gas generators.

blturner Mar 13

@evan @timbray numbers are pointless without sources?

dr2chase Mar 13

@ben @evan @timbray you can start here to make estimates on bounds: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/inventory-us-greenhouse-gas-emissions-and-sinks

Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks | US EPA

The national greenhouse gas inventory is developed each year to track trends in U.S. emissions and removals. Find emissions by source, economic sector and greenhouse gas.

US EPA

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-will-drive-doubling-of-data-center-energy-demand-by-2030/

"By comparison, data centres consumed 415 TWh in 2024, roughly 1.5% of the world’s total electricity consumption (see ‘Global electricity growth’)."

Electricity accounts for about 1/3 of global GHGs, so data centres are <1% of global GHGs.

"They found that servers for AI accounted for 24% of server electricity demand and 15% of total data centre energy demand in 2024."

AI Will Drive Doubling of Data Center Energy Demand by 2030

Data centers accounted for about 1.5 percent of global electricity consumption in 2024, an amount expected to double by 2030 because of AI use

Scientific American

dr2chase Mar 13

@evan @timbray I’ve started to suspect that every eco-moral-panic around something that isn’t cars/trucks or beef is quietly promoted by big fossil or big ag as a deflection. Remember plastic straws?

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

@dr2chase @timbray we don't have very good public education about GHG emissions, especially from different sectors. The press make a lot of apples-to-oranges comparisons that are hard for people to grasp in isolation, like saying that the fashion industry is responsible for more emissions than the EU.

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

@dr2chase @timbray is that a lot? A little? Does that count clothing made in the EU?

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

@dr2chase @timbray when we slice the pie geographically, but also by activity, and also by economic sector, it can get confusing.

For example, livestock account for about 10-15% of GHG emissions. Part of that is because they fart and burp and shit everywhere, creating a lot of methane, one of the worst greenhouse gases. But another part is because we destroy a lot of forests to make pastureland, taking out an important sink for CO2. Yet another part is processing and transportation.

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

@dr2chase @timbray when you break that down by activity type, you'd put the different contributions in different buckets: livestock cultivation, deforestation, industrial processes, transportation. It's only when you look at the full economic sector that you get the combined numbers.

Evan Prodromou Mar 13

@dr2chase @timbray if you look at the US GHG inventory, it's broken down by activity. So it's hard to see what contribution comes from furniture, from movies, from the wine industry. Their contributions are split across different activities.

dr2chase Mar 13

@evan @timbray the GHG footprint of the (nitrogen) fertilizer used to grow the corn/soy to feed the cattle is also a factor. There is some reuse, e.g. use brewers grains from ethanol (for cars!) manufacture, as cattle feed. And also in the-o-ry we can use electricity to make ammonia, instead of natural gas.

Erin Dalzell (He/Him) 🇨🇦Mar 14

@evan @dr2chase @timbray The Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/04/ai-data-centers-energy-demands/686064/

Inside the Dirty, Dystopian World of AI Data Centers

The race to power AI is already remaking the physical world.

The Atlantic

Evan Prodromou Mar 14

@emd @dr2chase @timbray hey, did you see my latest poll?

https://cosocial.ca/@evan/116223800384155825

Evan Prodromou (@[email protected])

Have you ever read a greenhouse gas inventory? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_inventory #EvanPoll #poll [ ] Yes [ ] Yes, but... [ ] No, but... [ ] No

CoSocial

dr2chase Mar 15

@evan @emd @timbray too late for me, but yes.