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US Will Fall Behind In the AI Race Without Natural Gas, Says Williams Companies CEO 212
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: The U.S. will fall behind in the artificial intelligence race if it does not embrace natural gas to help meet surging electricity demand from data centers, the CEO of one of the nation's largest pipeline operators told CNBC. "The only way we're going to be able to keep up with the kind of power demand and the electrification that's already afoot is natural gas," Williams Companies CEO Alan Armstrong said in an interview Thursday. "If we deny ourselves that we're going to fall behind in the AI race." Williams Companies handles about one-third of the natural gas in the U.S. through a pipeline network that spans more than 30,000 miles. Williams' network includes the 10,000 mile Transcontinental Pipeline, or Transco, a crucial artery that serves virtually the entire eastern seaboard including Virginia, the world's largest data center hub, and fast growing Southeast markets such as Georgia.
The tech sector's expansion of data centers to support AI and the adoption of electric vehicles is projected to add 290 terawatt hours of electricity demand by the end of the decade in the U.S., according to a recent report by the energy consulting firm Rystad. This load growth is equivalent to the entire electricity demand of Turkey, the world's 18th largest economy. Executives at some the nation's largest utilities have warned that failure to meet this surging electricity demand will jeopardize not just the artificial intelligence revolution, but economic growth across the board in the U.S. The role natural gas in helping to meet that demand is controversial as the country is simultaneously trying to transition to a clean energy economy through the rapid expansion of renewables. "We are going to run right up against a brick wall here and pretty quickly in terms of not having enough power available to do what we want to do on the AI side," Armstrong said. "I actually see this as a huge national security issue," the CEO said. "We're going to have to get out of our own way or we're going to accidentally keep ourselves from being the power we can be in the AI space."
"Those groups that have very much had their brand be all green have come to us and said, 'We got to work with you guys. We've run out of alternatives -- we can't meet the needs of our customers without using natural gas,'" Armstrong said. "We're completely out of capacity ourselves," Armstrong added. "So we just have to kind of beg, borrow and steal from other people's capacity to do our best to make gas available."
The tech sector's expansion of data centers to support AI and the adoption of electric vehicles is projected to add 290 terawatt hours of electricity demand by the end of the decade in the U.S., according to a recent report by the energy consulting firm Rystad. This load growth is equivalent to the entire electricity demand of Turkey, the world's 18th largest economy. Executives at some the nation's largest utilities have warned that failure to meet this surging electricity demand will jeopardize not just the artificial intelligence revolution, but economic growth across the board in the U.S. The role natural gas in helping to meet that demand is controversial as the country is simultaneously trying to transition to a clean energy economy through the rapid expansion of renewables. "We are going to run right up against a brick wall here and pretty quickly in terms of not having enough power available to do what we want to do on the AI side," Armstrong said. "I actually see this as a huge national security issue," the CEO said. "We're going to have to get out of our own way or we're going to accidentally keep ourselves from being the power we can be in the AI space."
"Those groups that have very much had their brand be all green have come to us and said, 'We got to work with you guys. We've run out of alternatives -- we can't meet the needs of our customers without using natural gas,'" Armstrong said. "We're completely out of capacity ourselves," Armstrong added. "So we just have to kind of beg, borrow and steal from other people's capacity to do our best to make gas available."
Even for a CEO (Score:5, Insightful)
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That’s pretty shameless.
It's funny because it's true. [twitter.com]
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The solution is obvious, even to that CEO - just don't bother with AI, energy saved, everybody wins!
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Re: Even for a CEO (Score:3, Insightful)
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Can anyone do better? (Score:2)
Not a constructive comment, but the moderation abuse is even more destructive. Yes, it was a weak FP branch--but I admit that I wasn't much interested in the story.
And yet it appears (by the quantity of comments) to be the most interesting story on Slashdot now? Sorry, but my expectations for Slashdot can't go lower.
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Re:Even for a CEO (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, it is well-known that there is a dial on a machine in the oval office. Turn it one way and the rate of fall behindedness goes up, turn it the other way and it goes down. Presumably you believe Biden has turned it the wrong way. If only someone had told him to turn it the other way.
[insert subject here] (Score:3, Insightful)
The US is doomed if it doesn't embrace [insert product here] said supplier of [insert product here].
Re:[insert subject here] (Score:5, Funny)
An example:
The US is doomed if it doesn't embrace 'Fart Spray' said supplier of 'Fart Spray'.
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Yep:
The US is doomed if it doesn't embrace MAGA ideology, said the supplier of MAGA ideology.
Re:[insert subject here] (Score:5, Insightful)
Please read my signature line, and know that I mean you.
Re:[insert subject here] (Score:4, Insightful)
The three main Western religions are authoritarian at heart. That is why the Evangelicals believe in the former alleged president.
Re:[insert subject here] (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is not to be confused with spirituality: An open-ended mental, physical, and linguistic art form.
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Basically concurrence, even with your sig. But it's not just telling other people to stop voting. It's also removing their votes.
But I actually feel sort of relieved. On the one hand I still want to do my duty and vote, but on the other hand it's no longer my fault in any way. I think I sincerely did everything that was reasonable (and a bit more) trying to get my vote back.
Imagine America as a reality TV program. That's on the verge of cancellation.
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Re: [insert subject here] (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Liberalism is very simple and clear: We all have rights, and they are equal. And authoritarianism is also very simple and clear: I have all the rights, and you have none unless I say so. And "conservatism" in this country = authoritarianism.
Your petty grievances about some regulatory decision do not amount to real political arguments. They're like someone ranting that their parking tickets are "out of control government", but where they were parking was at a Nazi rally.
Re: [freedom] (Score:2)
Is freedom a zero-sum game or a win-win thing?
My current mnemonic for freedom (as edited for Slashdot's limited character set):
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful + Truthful - Coercion^2) Choice{~5} != (Beer^4+ | Speech | Trade)
Me? I think freedom is win-win, but the folks with the big monopolistic corporate cancers beg to differ. For extremely authoritarian values of "beg".
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Freedom has an underappreciated and often r
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Its not much different than indentured servitude or slavery
I assume you're writing this from Free Somalia or some other libertardian haven, where you're so bootstrapped that you're judge Dredd, doctor Moreau and Caesar all in one. I'm impressed you find time to share your wisdom on slashdot given how busy you must be.
Re: [insert subject here] (Score:2)
Re: [insert subject here] (Score:2)
Re: [insert subject here] (Score:2)
Authoritarian is based on having no choice as to what the boundaries are
Re: [insert subject here] (Score:5, Insightful)
What you're describing is cronyism and patronage, which is a much worse problem in an authoritarian system than a liberal one. Obviously, if you're not even allowed to criticize government officials let alone vote against them, you'll have a hard time addressing unethical behavior among them. Ascribing a failure defined by its contrast with liberal values (such as inclusive, representative governance) to those values themselves is absurd doublespeak.
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Liberalism violates basic rights by using taxes for companies/person gain.
That's the libertarian conservative argument. Since conservatives always increase government spending when they get in office, you would expect libertarians to be also opposed to conservatives, but in the 1980s libertarians made an alliance with conservatives, in which the libertarians agreed to not criticize conservatism and the conservatives agreed to adopt libertarian rhetoric (but not actual libertarianism) in their talking.
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The funny thing here is that you don't understand that the person you're replying to is using the global definition of liberalism as opposed to the American one that only we use.
Of course I don't expect your gross ignorance to keep you from pretending you're an informmed person boldy defending us all from leftists.
Re: [insert subject here] (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of how you achieved economic equality, you need political freedom to use it for anything, let alone maintain it for any length of time. Likewise, regardless of how you achieve staggering personal wealth, you need the wider community to prosper or else all you did was set your own house on fire to warm your feet. So this whole axis is sheer sleight-of-hand distraction.
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Rats, out of mod points.
You are correct. Whether you are killed by the Church for heresy or by the Party for revanchism is irrelevant. You are still dead.
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Well put. You really only need three political axes to cover most important questions: Liberal vs. authoritarian (what is inherently important?), radical vs. conservative (cost-benefit analysis), and progressive vs. regressive (do more or do less?). But Left-Right is mostly posturing or personality. Only liberal/authoritarian is a moral question, the other two axes are pract
Or not (Score:5, Insightful)
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I guess we can drop the word 'oil' from that sentence to make it more generic and accurate:
'Sounds like a bunch of industry bullshit to me'
Re: Or not (Score:3)
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logic (Score:3)
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Re: logic (Score:2)
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The issue is not really that they want gas, they want electricity. Cheap electricity, and gas is relatively cheap.
China is installing the equivalent of 5 large nuclear plants worth of renewables PER WEEK. If you want loads of cheap energy, do that. They also have the longest transmission lines the world to get it where it needs to be.
Re: logic (Score:3)
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You use energy provided by your nuclear plants, obviously
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"The longest transmission lines [in] the world".
That plus batteries. That leaves season variation which we currently cannot account for. Options: compressed gas, thermal store (not for electricity), hydrogen stores with gas turbines, or biofuel/gas. All stored using geological stores. All in development.
Re: logic (Score:2)
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They are installing such vast amounts of it that they never have periods where it can't supply a certain amount of base load. Just build more until you have enough.
They also have massive amounts of battery storage. Again, we missed the boat on that. Korea and Japan are the only other major players, and they are small compared to China.
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Battery storage helps to smooth the output of renewables. It's got a whole country UPS, it's to help with grid stability, peaking, and a bit of time shifting.
Re: logic (Score:2)
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You forgot nuclear is a thing
Nuclear power time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuclear power time?
Re:Nuclear power time? (Score:5, Interesting)
I came here to see if anyone would mention this. We really should have been aggressively working on Gen4 designs and have them into service years ago, potentially even using them to consume and reduce the waste made by earlier gen reactors. But nope, of course we stick with coal.
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But we earn valuable Forex by exporting the ash to Africa.
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We really should have been aggressively working on Gen4 designs and have them into service years ago, potentially even using them to consume and reduce the waste made by earlier gen reactors. But nope, of course we stick with coal.
"We" (actually Westinghouse) did almost exactly that. They developed the AP1000 reactor - an inherently safe design with many fewer moving parts (but it is only counted as a "GenII+" design rather than your "Gen4" for which no precise definition exists).
And Westinghouse went bankrupt while completing two of them in Georgia at more than twice the expected cost. Eight others that were licensed were cancelled due to high costs. They licensed the design to China which is successfully building them. With the ban
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The only thing keeping us from having electricity too cheap to meter is fear coughed up by propaganda guys in the 70s.
This statement was actually made in 1954 by none other than Atomic Energy Commissioner Lewis Strauss (brilliantly portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in Oppenheimer), a man who acted as a booster for atomic industry in all its forms and who had no technical background whatsoever. He was vague about what he was referring to and it may have been fusion power, which is offered as a defense for his words, oddly enough by nuclear industry types as if it made them more accurate.
Re: Nuclear power time? (Score:2)
Chernobyl is a lesson not to repeatedly ignore every safety complaint and allow management to cover up problems in a politically charged Soviet bureaucracy. Basically do the opposite of that and you'll not have another Chernobyl. You'll get something else of course, but it won't be as bad. Or at least doesn't kill as many people as a coal mine does.
Re: Nuclear power time? (Score:2)
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Nuclear power time?
If a technological innovation doesn't appreciably improve humanity's standard of living in proportion to the amount of resources it consumes, perhaps what it's really time for is pressing the "off" button.
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You first!
I do shut off anything I'm not using, because I don't have a bunch of drooling investors tripping over each other to pay my electric bill.
NOT:Nuclear power time (Score:3)
Nuclear power time?
'Fraid not.
Battery technology was a little behind photovoltaic, but (initially driven by market from the ramp-up of practical EV autos) has similarly:
- Gone through the "explosion of breathroughs that don't get deployed because they'll probably be obsoleted by better breakthroughs before you make back the cost of the new plant" stage,
- Is well into the "got some that are so profitable it's time for the race through the window" stage,
- And is starting to transition
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IMHO Nuclear time comes when we get practical power plants based on fusion, Oppenheimer-Phillips (O-P) stripping, or mirror O-P stripping.
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Now, get serious. Like AI itself, the target audience is dummies who will fund energy sector growth... not dummies like you. Nuclear energy sector doesn't want to lose out to Big Fossil. So
5 years? 10 years? Don't worry about that, you don't want to fall behind (the Chinese, obviously) do you?
Funding is plowing into AI from the looks of it, so energy sector growth can't be far behind.
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Don't big brain the OPs comment. All they think about is how frequently and pointlessly they can mention nuclear power like they have a quota to meet.
Don't like strong language? I scale it's strength with the stupidity of what I'm replying to. Which is why I'm not using any in this reply.
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but he isn't wrong
I'm sarcastic and facetious to an extent, but there are people who benefit from practices that destroy the planet.
They will take their opportunity.
Re: Nuclear power time? (Score:2)
I give up! (Score:4, Insightful)
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BLOT:
US and China will burn themselves to the cinder mining BitCoin and creating AI models respectively.
The AI bubble is sooo popping (Score:3)
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I heard that AI has become self aware and is now experimenting with MySpace.
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I heard that AI has become self aware and is now experimenting with MySpace.
No doubt curious about the significant anomaly in the human social media fabric with some fucking guy named "Tom" walking about with 200 million friends in an unheard-of era of Mass Narcissism.
Beans (Score:2)
I’ll eat more beans for better AI.
Organic beans so it’s more natural.
Does that help?
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If we're going that route, we may need to start a fast track educational program for proctologists.
You want proof that AI is now a fad? (Score:2)
I now look forward to AI tooth whitening, deodorant, dish washing liquid, breath mints, dietary supplements, exercise routines, and dog food.
Re: You want proof that AI is now a fad? (Score:2)
I have it on pretty good authority that AI headphones are going to be out for Xmas. Makes the whole "digital" headphones craze seem sane.
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Just ship turds in a box labeled "Uber meta cyber digital wireless AI crypto solutions." Be very popular with early adopters.
Early adopters? Pfft. What kind of amateur marketing crap is that?
I'd stamp that shit with a fake-gold-plated Limited Edition placard and claim we're only making 1,000 of them to be sold exclusively during the next solar eclipse limited to 3 zip codes. And then triple that weak-ass price tag to sell to the real chumps; collectors.
Next design meeting is at the Taco Bell bathroom, stall 3.
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Bananas (Score:5, Funny)
Without bananas, the US will lose its lead in AI. Many of the world's top AI researchers depend on bananas for their daily nutritional needs. Bananas have vitamin B6. Vitamin B6 is needed for brain health. Unfortunately what we're seeing is a trend of banana shortages. We just don't have the farm capacity. That's why we've had to increase the price of bananas 75% over the last year. The good news though, is that with a modest government subsidy of $10 billion we're prepared to take the lead in enabling the AI driven future by doubling our banana supply. In fact, shareholders will be pleased to know that as the CEO of Chiquita banana we're changing our company name to Chiquita.AI.
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Makes as much sense as the rhetoric floating around.
Hasn't there been a couple of headlines recently saying AI doesn't really use any significant electricity? So who's right?
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Without bananas, the US will lose its lead in AI.
Well, I was going to vote for a legalized cocaine industry if AI is slowing that much, but yeah. We can go with “bananas” if it looks better on the executive finance report.
Not news (Score:2)
What an asshole. The planet is cooking. (Score:2)
Clean Coal(TM) (Score:2)
The power problem (Score:2)
The power consumed by AI is brand new demand. It has no historical analog that is being retired. It's simply added on top. You can't build renewable sources or nuclear quickly enough so, yes, it'll have to come from fossil fuels. It's the only thing that can scale that fast. The dodgy claim here is the existential one. It must be done, and damn the consequences. Well, depending what you believe, you might conclude that we're exchanging a possible threat for a certain one.
How about we shut down all the stupi
Re: The power problem (Score:2)
Great for the Economy (Score:2)
Also this creates competition between the fossil fuel industry and the nuclear power industry.
We're not going to stand around with our hands on our hips and let the Chinese get ahead on this are we?
Best news for the energy sector since the war in Ukraine.
Who said war wasn't good for the economy? Bullshit.
Economics of Training an AI model (Score:2)
Re: Economics of Training an AI model (Score:2)
what a load a crap (Score:2)
we are doomed unless we buy his product. fuck that guy.
Grifters gonna grift (Score:2)
My guess is he just heavily invested in natural gas.
Nah. (Score:2)
Nah, I'm pretty sure all future demand can be met by mice running on treadmills.
Here's a thought... (Score:2)
Instead of simultaneously complaining about power shortages and putting huge tariffs on insanely cheap Chinese solar panels, we just buy and use them?
FUD (Score:2)
Fear! Uncertainty! Doubt!
"Mr. President, we must not allow... a mine shaft gap!" -Doctor Strangelove
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My dog has no nose.
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Terrible!
Re: Security and economy (Score:2)
Nvidia has rightly ascended to a temporary throne of LLM ( I canâ(TM)t say AI with a straight face) COU/GPU dominance . But of course, they are super expensive and in short supply.
This, however, are they perfect conditions for a market-based economy to innovate. Already there are individuals and companies, big and small working to improve on this situating at hardware, software, and energy consumption.
I canâ(TM)t predict the future better than anyone else, but whatever âoeAIâ will be
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Oops, did you think that was an argument for your position? Talk about own-goal scoring. I appreciate the assist, buddy!
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Why would you want to burn something? If you can accomplish the same task cleanly, non-destructively, and at substantially lower systemic cost, why in the ever-loving fuck would you insist on doing it the other way? Just to get a little thrill of power, like a kid using a magnifying glass on ants?
And spare me the straw men about campfires, fireplaces, and log cabins with wood stoves. This is about taxpayer-subsidized power plants and punk-ass rednecks who think they'
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No power generation requires the consumption of a fuel source. That's just how modern economies have operated because they could externalize the systemic cost out into the world in the form of toxic air pollution, water pollution, and GHG. The rich would just move somewhere else while the source of their income came from poisoning poor people. Now it's also coming from literally cooking them alive on city streets. And
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The breakthrough in matrix multiplication already happened. Matrix multiplication can be broken down into a set of multiply-and-accumulate threads, which can be run simultaneously and added up at the end. This is what GPUs do best, and it so happens that a lot of transforms can be implemented as matrix multiplication. GPUs will only stop being the best off-the-shelf solution if and when neural networks move away from massive amounts of matrix multiplication, and that's not likely to happen any time soon.