Google Has Decided AI Opportunities Are More Important Than Worrying About Boiling the Planet

Google’s cognitive dissonance is readily apparent between what it said in 2020 and what it says today. Could its priorities have changed?

Source: Image by Simon from Pixabay

Google on September 14, 2020:

Google announced one of the biggest green pledges from tech yet

It will run on carbon-free energy by 2030

Google just made one of Big Tech’s most ambitious environmental commitments: it will work to run its operations purely on carbon-free energy by 2030. It also announced that as of today, it has purchased enough carbon offsets to essentially cancel out all the planet-heating carbon dioxide emissions the company has released since it was founded in 1998. 

Google has been carbon neutral each year since 2007, which means that it offsets the emissions it generates from burning fossil fuels by investing in renewable energy projects or other initiatives that draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and into storage. But relying on offsets doesn’t actually wean the company off fossil fuels. Google released 4.9 million metric tons of greenhouse gases in 2018 alone, roughly the amount that more than 1 million passenger vehicles might put out in a year.

Carbon offsets, of course, are a scam, as has become robustly evident since 2020 but take a look where things are today.

Google on July 3, 2024:

Google’s carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand

Google’s emissions surged nearly 50% compared to 2019, the company said Tuesday in its 2024 environmental report, marking a notable setback in its goal to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030. 

Google’s emissions also increased 13% year over year in 2023, per the report.

The company attributed the emissions spike to an increase in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions driven by rapid advancements in and demand for artificial intelligence. The report noted that the company’s total data center electricity consumption grew 17% in 2023. 

The impact of AI on electricity demand is well documented. Electricity demand is forecast to grow as much as 20% by 2030, with AI data centers alone expected to add about 323 terawatt hours of electricity demand in the U.S., CNBC previously reported.

While renewables will likely play an important role in meeting AI energy demands, analysts say that immediate implementation is challenging. This is due to factors such as the time required to build the power lines that transport resources to the data centers, Wells Fargo analyst Roger Read previously told CNBC.

All so completely and totally predictable. How did anyone believe the lies? They did so because they wanted to believe them. It sounded good and rewarded them financially as we know from Ivanpah, Google’s turtle torching experiment.

Hat Tip: JoNova

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