The pursuit of an “energy transition” clashes with the escalating energy demands of our digital age. Foundational innovations like electric cars, repatriated manufacturing, and especially artificial intelligence are driving electricity consumption to unprecedented levels. AI’s hunger for power, exemplified by energy-intensive AI chips and data centers, is growing at an unlimited rate. The digital economy’s expansion, particularly the cloud and its massive data centers, requires vast amounts of energy, debunking the notion of decoupling economic growth from rising energy use. The scale of data traffic, measured in zettabytes and soon to be in yottabytes and beyond, is overwhelming efficiency gains in hardware. This surge in data production, fueled by automation and enhanced environmental and biological measurements, highlights that information is a limitless resource. To meet the growing energy demands, the world needs “all of the above” energy solutions, and the U.S. must have the political will to enable them.
Read the full article on City Journal: https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-energy-transition-wont-happen
