AI and Electricity: Cost and Saving Whales
July 15, 2024
This essay is the work of a dinobaby. Unlike some folks, no smart software improved my native ineptness. Grumbling about the payoff from those billions of dollars injected into smart software continues. The most recent angle is electricity. AI is a power sucker, a big-time energy glutton. I learned this when I read the slightly alarmist write up “Artificial Intelligence Needs So Much Power It’s Destroying the Electrical Grid.” Texas, not a hot bed of AI excitement, seems to be doing quite well with the power grid problem without much help from AI. Mother Nature has made vivid the weaknesses of the infrastructure in that great state.
Some dolphins may love the power plant cooling effluent (run off). Other animals, not so much. Thanks, MSFT Copilot. Working on security this week?
But let’s get back to saving whales and the piggishness of those with many GPUs processing data to help out the eighth-graders with their 200 word essays.
The write up says:
As a recent report from the Electric Power Research Institute lays out, just 15 states contain 80% of the data centers in the U.S.. Some states – such as Virginia, home to Data Center Alley – astonishingly have over 25% of their electricity consumed by data centers. There are similar trends of clustered data center growth in other parts of the world. For example, Ireland has become a data center nation.
So what?
The article says that it takes just two years to spin up a smart software data center but it takes four years to enhance an electrical grid. Based on my experience at a unit of Halliburton specializing in nuclear power, the four year number seems a bit optimistic. One doesn’t flip a switch and turn on Three Mile Island. One does not pick a nice spot near a river and start building a nuclear power reactor. Despite the recent Supreme Court ruling calling into question what certain frisky Executive Branch agencies can require, home owners’ associations and medical groups can make life interesting. Plus building out energy infrastructure is expensive and takes time. How long does it take for several feet of specialized concrete to set? Longer than pouring some hardware store quick fix into a hole in your driveway?
The article says:
There are several ways the industry is addressing this energy crisis. First, computing hardware has gotten substantially more energy efficient over the years in terms of the operations executed per watt consumed. Data centers’ power use efficiency, a metric that shows the ratio of power consumed for computing versus for cooling and other infrastructure, has been reduced to 1.5 on average, and even to an impressive 1.2 in advanced facilities. New data centers have more efficient cooling by using water cooling and external cool air when it’s available. Unfortunately, efficiency alone is not going to solve the sustainability problem. In fact, Jevons paradox points to how efficiency may result in an increase of energy consumption in the longer run. In addition, hardware efficiency gains have slowed down substantially as the industry has hit the limits of chip technology scaling.
Okay, let’s put aside the grid and the dolphins for a moment.
AI has and will continue to have downstream consequences. Although the methods of smart software are “old” when measured in terms of Internet innovations, the knock on effects are not known.
Several observations are warranted:
- Power consumption can be scheduled. The method worked to combat air pollution in Poland, and it will work for data centers. (Sure, the folks wanting computation will complain, but suck it up, buttercups. Plan and engineer for efficiency.)
- The electrical grid, like the other infrastructures in the US, need investment. This is a job for private industry and the governmental authorities. Do some planning and deliver results, please.
- Those wanting to scare people will continue to exercise their First Amendment rights. Go for it. However, I would suggest putting observations in a more informed context may be helpful. But when six o’clock news weather people scare the heck out of fifth graders when a storm or snow approaches, is this an appropriate approach to factual information? Answer: Sure when it gets clicks, eyeballs, and ad money.
Net net: No big changes for now are coming. I hope that the “deciders” get their Fiat 500 in gear.
Stephen E Arnold, July 15, 2024
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