Environment – High cost of cat videos

Industrial civilisation has already used all its easily accessed oil and other energy reserves, and the energy return on investment is less than what’s required to extract it. The desire for high yielding energy has taken exploration to deep seas and Arctic tundra. It has also driven the damming of rivers for hydroelectric energy, the expansion of wind power, extensive solar arrays, and the (false) promise of biofuels and green hydrogen. Energy demands are also encouraging the resurgence of nuclear power around the world.

One problem is that the more energy that’s produced, from whatever source, the more we use. The number of power-using devices is unequal to the amount of power available. Just look at the demands of new technology – not just the additional demands from electrical appliances doing jobs that we used to do manually – but also providing luxuries like heated towel rails.

But among the greatest demands on our diminishing energy supplies, is for data centres and AI. According to the International Energy Agency, AI use in the US is set to consume more electricity in 2030 for data processing than for manufacturing all energy-intensive goods combined, including aluminium, steel, cement and chemicals. In the US, demand is expected to grow by 160 per cent by 2030 to reach eight per cent of the energy produced there. Data centres are projected to drive more than 20 per cent of the growth in electricity demand in industrial nations between now and 2030.

Microsoft is also reactivating the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to meet its AI energy needs.

Three Mile Island is the site of the worst nuclear disaster in the US, which happened in 1979 and where remediation is still underway. Now renamed the Crane Clean Energy Centre, the plant’s parent company seeks a license to operate until at least 2054. Obviously, the waste legacy from the nuclear power plant will last for hundreds or thousands of years beyond.

Investment company Infratil and its partner CDC clearly see data centres as a good bet here in New Zealand. They’ve already constructed nine data centres and plan for at least five to seven more. They have committed more than $700m into ‘hyperscale’ data centres since last December. Current data centre energy consumption is about 200 megawatts, but is expected to grow to one to two gigawatts, the same amount of energy that could otherwise power one or two million homes.

Hobsonville and Silverdale are sites for Infratil/CDC’s first hyperscale data centres (14 megawatts each).

The nearby Spark data centre being built at Dairy Flat will be accompanied by a surf park with artificial waves warmed by excess data centre heat. There will also be a new town with 500 homes approved under Fast-track legislation.

Data centres and AI give us ready capacity to store pictures of cats and generate fun pictures online, but its energy demands are voracious and may leave New Zealanders cold or burning coal.