AI还是AC?

这张图片是免费使用的照片 antonioespana.

 

AI is on everyone’s minds and lips these days.  Wall Street sees it as the only thing that will grow our economy and national output.  Every CEO must mention AI a dozen or more times in his earnings call to not be considered backward and out of step.  I discussed AI and commercial real estate last year in a three-part series 人工智能的过去和现在, AI & CRE，未来就是现在, 人工智能需要新的数据中心.

 

人工智能的缺点是什么?

 

但人工智能也可能有一两个缺点.  We have all heard the congressional interest in addressing personal privacy issues due to the vacuum-like data collection of your personal data from social media sites.  最近在Met Gala上, there was a beautiful photo of Katy Perry on the red carpet, but – problem – she wasn’t there; it was a deepfake.  She was actually recording a new album and the pic was total AI. You may have heard that AI can even capture your voice off any phone and internet recordings, 然后邪恶的人可以复制它, for example by sending your phony voice to a relative, 说也许, you are a hostage and to send money right away.  (Suggest you have a family code word for au然后tication).

But did you know that AI has an impact on the environment, 太?  人工智能生活在新建的数据中心里.  The old ones can’t support AI because they are becoming obsolete.  新的人工智能芯片要大得多, far more complex and they use more than 5 times the power of an old chip which means we must build many, 许多新, 昂贵的数据中心遍布美国.S. 支持人工智能. There are at least 35 datacenters now in S.A. with several under construction that will be AI supportive, 151 in Dallas with 16 AI under construction, and over 250 total now in northern Virginia, 世界上最大的集群.  These all require massive amounts of new electrical capacity and energy producers must seriously add to their output volumes by building substantially more power stations.

 

What can support our increasing energy demands?

 

The increase in electric demand 支持人工智能 is dramatic. 富国银行(Wells Fargo)表示.S. total power demand is now about 4,000 tera watt hours (TWh).  All AI currently uses about 8 TWh but they project that demand will accelerate to 652 TWh by 2030, 占美国全部电力的16%.S. 现在使用. It is estimated that AI alone could use as much energy as all Sweden by 2027.  When we combine AI growth with normal population growth, 增加工业化, more electric cars and rapid electrification of the developing world, 然后, “我们需要一个更大的发电厂.“很多。!

These new power stations will probably be powered by liquid natural gas or LNG, which is largest source of electricity generation in the U.S. BP, 主要石油生产国, said that we will need every bit of renewables and natural gas we possibly can in order to meet our near future energy needs.  Investors are even lifting the stock values of utilities and natural-gas pipeline operators on the expectation of higher demand for electricity to supply AI datacenters.

 

可再生能源解决方案是答案吗?

 

Renewables alone can’t make up the demand for additional electricity in the years ahead.  In Texas we saw how wind turbines and solar panels can be unreliable in a crisis, 像冬日风暴Uri, 又名snowmageddon. But even in normal times turbines only produce when the wind is over 9 mph, and must be shut down when the wind velocity is over 50 mph.  They also kill hundreds of thousands of birds each year, 使用大量的油来润滑, 污染土地和海洋.  Tripling and quadrupling the number of windmills will not be the solution.

Solar panels only generate electricity for 5 to 6 hours a day, 在晴朗的日子, and have a plethora of negative environmental impacts in production of the panels and 然后 on the disposal side, 太.  Wind and solar require massive batteries to be effective and these batteries have not really been perfected yet and are only now being put into the massive use required to run the electric grid.  然后, these batteries require massive mining operations that pollute the environment and atmosphere.  So, the renewables are actually the messy unreliables and not an answer for a safe and clean energy expansion into the future.

 

煤或天然气?

 

We can agree that coal is not the answer either, so this brings us back to liquid natural gas. 不幸的是, the current administration is very negative toward fossil fuels and are committed to a transition from them to clean energy, so they oppose expanding our electricity production by LNG powered plants.  They are blocking LNG to other countries, 太, through a “pause” on exports.  These developing countries are consequently forced to 然后 rely on dirty production from coal plants to meet their growing energy needs.  This is especially true for China and India.

然而, the FEDS are committed to this transition to counter Global Warming and yet it is difficult to see how solar and wind can reliably supply our energy needs for the future.   没有什么能阻止人工智能的繁荣, but if we don’t amp up our production of electricity, 我们会面临聊天机器人VS的战斗吗. 未来的空调?  没有人想要那样!

Next month we will look at our local provider, CPS, and how they are addressing the energy expansion issue.