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Power

Data Centers Could Use 9% of US Electricity By 2030, Research Institute Says (reuters.com) 27

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Data centers could use up to 9% of total electricity generated in the United States by the end of the decade, more than doubling their current consumption, as technology companies pour funds into expanding their computing hubs, the Electric Power Research Institute said on Wednesday. From a report: Depending on the adoption pace of technology such as generative artificial intelligence, which is fueling the expansion of data centers, and the energy efficiency of new centers, the estimated annual growth rate of electricity use by the industry ranges from 3.7% to 15% through 2030, the institute's analysis said. The institute is a U.S.-based research organization funded by energy and government organizations.

Data centers, along with expanding domestic manufacturing and electrification of transportation, are lifting the U.S. electricity industry out of two decades of flat growth. The centers require massive amounts of power for high-intensity computing and cooling systems, with a new large data center requiring the same amount of electricity needed to power 750,000 homes, according to numerous energy company earnings calls this year.
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Data Centers Could Use 9% of US Electricity By 2030, Research Institute Says More

Data Centers Could Use 9% of US Electricity By 2030, Research Institute Says

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  • They all want to be in the Southwest because there is no natural disastrous to speak of but there's massive drought in the Southwest. Yes there are ways to run data centers without using much water but they cost more and it's much cheaper to buy off local politicians and uses much water as you want.

    You would be astonished how corrupt local politicians are because so few people pay attention to local politics.
  • What percentage of the total electricity generated in the the United State by the end of this decade is expected to be consumed by battery-based electric vehicles recharging? I'm guessing that it will be more than 9%.

    • Do you think everyone is charging their vehicles from flat to 80% on a nightly basis?

      But rest your fears about EVs sucking up all the electricity as Donald Trump has pledged to stop all EV sales. https://www.yahoo.com/news/don... [yahoo.com]

      I bet that makes his pal Elmo real happy.

      • You lie.

        Link says hel'll slash EV credits. Which is good, I don't want to be paying for some overpriced toy of wear-the-nails signaller. If EV are good they can stand on their own merits.

        Right now, they're not good.

        • Giving credits for deploying/using new technology is to allow it to come to a profitable scale, because that benefits everyone. If we listened to everyone barking "I don't want my tax money going to that!", we'd make no progress and be left in the dark ages. Advancement has a cost whether you like it or not

          • We could also just cancel all subsidies to oil companies, and stop allowing commuter vehicles to be classified as "trucks" to evade emission standards.

          • My are you an optimist.

            Credits can be money down a sewer for a boondoggle too.

            Ignorant and wrong to say tax dollars have to fund something new, that's now what history showed.

            The automobile replaced the horse from 1907 to 1917, without tax credits. Turns out an organism making over 15 kilos of shit and 15+ liters of urine a day is a pain in the ass. to feed, keep and clean up after.

            Advancement can be done without tax dollars, for profit.

        • There are credits left? They are declining each year, and tax rebates only apply to the first N thousand models sold. Which means most of them sold do not have credits or rebates, and are indeed selling on their own merits. The president can't cancel that anyway if it was a congressional bill.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

        "Donald Trump has pledged to stop all EV sales" VS "Trump would roll back tailpipe emissions targets and dramatically slash EV tax credits."

        I can't entirely blame ArchieBunker for being a liar, as that is what the sensationalist headline says. But I can blame him for parroting and spreading mis-information without understanding it.

    • Re:now do battery-based electric vehicles (Score:4, Informative)

      by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 ) on Wednesday May 29, 2024 @01:36PM (#64508193)

      The entire transportation sector consumes 27% of energy (of all types) in the US, with 54% of that being personal vehicles

      Automobiles use about 14% of US energy today, EVs just shift the load to high efficiency power generators. Moving from ICE to EV will represent a savings in power used, particularly if people have personal solar panels/batteries to power the EVs

      • ... 27% of energy (of all types) in the US ...

        ... 14% of US energy today ...

        You disingenuously shifted the OP's % of electric-power generator output to % of all kinds of non-chlorophyl-catalyzed energy sources. Stay on topic, please. What is the percentage of electrical generator output (not any other source of energy) that is expected to be consumed by recharging battery-based electric vehicles by 2030? Of course, don't count hydrogen-gas fuel-cell electric vehicles. Of course, don't count hydrogen-gas turbine-engine vehicles. Of course, don't count internal-combustion engine

        • By 2030 we'll have roughly as few EVs as we have today. Maybe it will double or triple from 1% to 2% or 3%. Feel free to panic.

  • they hold all else constant? (Score:3)

    by aldousd666 ( 640240 ) on Wednesday May 29, 2024 @12:54PM (#64508123) Journal
    predicting trends like this is inherently fraught. you get huge data center usage because of AI, right? presumably. That means less energy consumed by offices or whatever people did without the AI. Also, who knows, maybe we'll have solar on sodium cells by then in wide distribution. Predictions, predictions.
    • in another topic here on /., someone said that if all plastics companies are sued out of existence, then we will have no more insulation for wiring, so, all that new electricity needed for these new data centers will have to be generated and transmitted by magic, because we wouldn't have the insulation for the wiring, so we will all revert back to the stone age except the rich.

      Yes, someone here actually said that without plastics we will have no insulation and the average folks will revert to the stone ag

    • I agree difficult to predict the future, but the market certainly thinks so. Nvidia is pumping out silicon at a very fast pace, and no one is buying all those chips to sit on the shelf. They are going to be burning power. I think I read somewhere training a large model consumes around 25MWh of juice. I'm not sure I burn that much in a year at my house. I run around 1MWh/mo on average. Summer more of course, but I've had months in spring/fall where I burn around 1/2MWh.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The point is that data centre energy usage is very likely to increase, so we have to make sure it happens in a sustainable way. Maybe even take advantage of it by requiring it to use renewable energy, which will help push prices down further and mean there is excess that gets exported to make the whole grid cleaner.

  • notice how the summary does not mention the climate impact at all. climate hysteria is relevant when the average peasant is using electricity to provide their basic needs, not when mega corporations are involved.

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