By Jo Nova
The winds of change are howling through electricity grids
Since 2022, AI -related firms have stormed the S&P 500 market — growing by $12 trillion dollars.
The IEA just posted a whole report dedicated to AI. The demand from data-centers is so large in some places it is already rivaling the kind of monster consumption we are used to seeing from aluminum smelters. There are six states in the United States where data centers already consume over 10% of the electricity supply. In Ireland, data centers swallow about 20% of the electricity.
Currently, a normal data center consumes the same amount of electricity as 100,000 houses. But the new gargantuan data centers under construction will consume 20 times as much — equivalent to adding 2 million homes to the grid.
Data centers of the world are not spread evenly. In Virginia, the largest conglomeration of industrial data, their demand for power pulls in a quarter of the state’s electricity.
Australia is being left behind, because we won’t build coal plants in case we offend the UN, and we banned nuclear power as a fashion statement in 1998. The AI global race is on, but digital machines need reliable cheap electricity and lots of it.
Also not looking sparkling on the graph above — New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Canada.
Sometime between now and 2030 (which is like ‘next week’) the world has to build a new network the size of Japan’s national grid — the fourth largest economy in the world.
Data centres accounted for around 1.5% of the world’s electricity consumption in 2024, or 415 terawatt-hours (TWh). The United States accounted for the largest share of global data centre electricity consumption in 2024 (45%), followed by China (25%) and Europe (15%). Globally, data centre electricity consumption has grown by around 12% per year since 2017, more than four times faster than the rate of total electricity consumption. AI-focused data centres can draw as much electricity as power-intensive factories such as aluminium smelters, but they are much more geographically concentrated. Nearly half of data centre capacity in the United States is in five regional clusters.
Data centre electricity consumption is set to more than double to around 945 TWh by 2030. This is slightly more than Japan’s total electricity consumption today.
There is no single factor driving up electricity demand more than AI at the moment:
In the United States, data centres account for nearly half of electricity demand growth between now and 2030. By the end of the decade, the country is set to consume more electricity for data centres than for the production of aluminium, steel, cement, chemicals and all other energy-intensive goods combined.
The IEA report, which was always a sop for “renewables” — suddenly isn’t that concerned about carbon emissions. This is an interesting shift. Almost like there is a sea-change in priorities of whoever it is that controls agencies like the IEA. Now it’s making excuses for industry…
“Concerns that AI could accelerate climate change appear overstated, as do expectations that AI alone will address the issue”
The widespread adoption of existing AI applications could lead to emissions reductions that are far larger than emissions from data centres – but also far smaller than what is needed to address climate change.
Just like private jets for billionaires, big new AI computers will save us from carbon emissions (sure)
AI will find cost savings all over the place, they say, but then again, if everyone has their own automated self-driving car, the plebs won’t need to catch the bus will they? Oh the dilemma…! Just look at the clutching excuses they come up with to justify monster energy increases.
AI applications in transport can improve efficiency and save costs, but they could also increase demand for personal mobility. AI applications are being used to manage traffic, optimise routes, predict maintenance needs and develop autonomous vehicles. The widespread adoption of AI applications across the transport sector could lead to energy savings equivalent to the energy used by 120 million cars. While autonomous vehicles operate more efficiently than conventional ones, they might also attract people away from public transport as costs fall and availability increases, leading to rebound effects.
In buildings, there is significant potential for AI-led optimisations to make heating and cooling systems more efficient and electricity use in buildings more flexible
Even the IEA admits we need affordable and reliable power
Countries with a record of reliable and affordable power will be best placed to unlock data centre growth, localise the computing power that is critical to homegrown AI development, and spur the IT industry more generally.
This graph with a microscopic gray font, compares how extensive those blackouts are around the world, with the First-World looking good (so far):
Beside that graph they have a very strange graph with microscopic fonts (which I expanded below) which has one solid square all by itself. This turns out to be the other emerging markets and developing economies they didn’t mention in the last graph.
The High Outage Country class of 2025 has more like 700 hours of average system interruption a year. It’s “off the charts” bad.
Tacitly, it suggests that the AI revolution won’t be moving to South Africa or Cuba.
Is there any industrial complex in the universe that works better on a part time random basis than it does on a predictable, reliable schedule?
History will show that countries with energy to spare will take over the world, and maybe the solar system.
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I don’t understand how the Australian Government wants Australia to become an “AI and data centre superpower” as well as a “renewables superpower”.
You can’t have both. The requirement of massive amounts of cheap reliable energy for AI and data centres make the two mutually exclusive.
Pick one.
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>Pick one
Plus recharging a national fleet of net zero electricity powered buses trucks and motor cars.
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Can this be reaL?
I thought advancing technology was suppoosed to reduce costs.
Intuition tells me that their data centres will prove far less marketable than they are planning for.
This will be their biggest boom and bust yet
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I suspect that AI has barely started. Like energy at the start of the industrial revolution, it can end up in just about every aspect of our lives.
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If “government’, especially this one, is involved, the result will be “None of the above”.
As intended
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The answer is obvious. The AI factories will just load shed when the grid is running down.
So if you are planning a big day on the AI band wagon, then you need to get in around lunchtime. On cloudy days, AI is going to be taking a nanny nap or two.
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More likely they will load shed the plebs, thereby keeping the AI centers on line.
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AI doesn’t vote but it knows exactly where you should leave the brown paper envelopes for maximum effect, (and who for).
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David Maddison, it is very easy to “understand how the Australian Government wants Australia to become an “AI and data centre superpower” as well as a “renewables superpower”… it’s because our Government are incredibly stupid and arrogant.
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One thing I’ve seen from this government is that the Ministers don’t seem to speak with each other. I don’t think they understand their portfolios. It’s just ‘who wants what?’
In this case, Blackout Bowen is Minister for Energy and Climate Change. Has anyone asked him how he reconciles AI energy requirements with his renewable energy progams?
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Reality has a way of biting the hand that doesn’t feed it.
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It is quite easy Mr Maddison – the Australian Government consists of ignorant morons. You can probably go as far as labelling the MPs as the same. And it is not much different here in the UK where the news is buzzing with the PM, Two Tier Never Here Free Gear No Idea Kier, having signed a series of new deals with the EU. The Reform UK leader Nigel Farage had an open goal to show him up in Parliament as lying but the great man was not there – too busy writing a piece for the Telegraph. The Sanitary and Phytosanitary deal that the PM alleges he has signed does not exist and if you looked at the EU statement on the subject that was made clear. Approval is needed from the Commission and then talks can start on the preparation of a draft Treaty that will take at least 2 years to complete and who knows how long to implement. The Tory leader was too ignorant to pick this up and none of the MPs who are allegedly employed on our behalf to hold the executive to account were informed enough to see the flaws were either.
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The Australian Government has a dilemma.
As the country descends into a totalitarian state under the Labor mandate, the Government will need increasing data centre and AI capacity so that every aspects of the lives of non-Elites can be fully traced, tracked and analysed including every thought you have on social media and every cent you spend and with whom as well as facial recognition tracking of you everywhere you go.
All required for the eventual establishment of a Chicomm-style social credit scheme.
To run the vast data processing requirements for this, massive Government AI and data centres will have to be implemented which will need vast amounts of energy which the country no longer has.
So they will have to either build coal, gas or nuclear power stations to power it all or do without. The latter might be preferable.
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We are becoming East Germany, witness the interrogation from Which Bank when you want to withdraw some of your OWN money.
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With possibly another 6 years of labor, unreliables get the nod so data centres are off the agenda.
It’s going to be like NINE years of Whitlam or Krudd.
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The “Data Centres” will be on the “essential grid”, along with the ADF, sundry police services and “enforcement agencies”.There will NOT be enough “juice’ or “infrastructure to hold up the Hospitals and other health srvices.
A bit more “right-sizing”.
If it all goes dark for an extended period, then the STASI will be reduced to pencils and manual typewriters, (until the paper runs out), a la “Brazil”, (the movie); “Buttle / Tuttle”)
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” You will have no power and you will be happy”.
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You will have no power and THEY will be happy.
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The ADF are not on the “essential” grid they have stand alone back up gens to keep running.
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“It’s going to be like NINE years of Whitlam or Krudd.”
Well it’s a blessing Dutton was axed by his constituents as he, aided by a squabbling ex-Coalition, would have wrecked the country by a week on Thursday.
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I thank Whitlam for forcing me to leave Australia and enjoy the exotic SE Asia at the beginning of my career as a petroleum geo. And, the Indo surf breaks were empty.
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They won’t build coal/gas/nukes to power it all, they will build them for AI. We plebs will get the renewables (we paid for them so we can have them).
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Once the realization of this inconvenient truth penetrates the skulls of the dimwits in charge of the economy, surely then it must mean the death knell for the inefficient ruinables.
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We can only hope.
Black-Out Bowen is doing his job.
Stuff up EVERY portfolio he has ever “run”.
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What is it about Bowen who is incompetent in everything he does but still allows him to be put into powerful political positions which are also ruinous for the country?
Oh, I think I just answered my own question.
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Not too complex a question really. He is an example of a politician who is easily manipulated by the bureaucracy.
And isn’t that all of them?
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Their skulls are too thick for anything to penetrate.
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Nett Zero is too STUPID to be STUPID. Bottom line is the sheeple of Australia voted for it. Don’t ever think you will VOTE these idiots out.
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66% of Australians DIDN’T vote for this.
We can blame the elites in the capital cities and the dole bludgers.
Mustn’t forget the AEC in all of this either.
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Yes they did. It’s what preferences are all about.
They loved the coffee-a-week tax break and voted against the coalition that refused to back it. They were too disinterested in all but the headlines. They didn’t bother with the big price reduction offered for filling their cars. They are the indoctrinated, fearful of ‘climate heating’ for the great great great grandkids futures, completely unaware destruction was already being brought down on themselves in the form of renewables, agricultural and mining limitations and the cost of staying alive. They didn’t question how renewables can be planted anywhere and there is no nationwide rising up by those faux ‘environmentalists’ that inject fear into them at every opportunity and haunt every other walk of life. Too late, they will learn the axiom ‘Elections have consequences; PAY ATTENTION!’ Meanwhile, enjoy what you voted for.
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Yes Net Zero was introduced into Australia by Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction Angus Taylor in October 2021 released Australia’s Long Term Emissions Reduction Plan (the Plan), to deliver net zero emissions by 2050. No wonder it is too stupid to be stupid
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All true and correct.
The Nats will have to give Net Zero the flick, as part of their platform, and take on the brainwashed majors over climate change. My crystal ball is a little foggy on this, but I think a designated coal fired power station, built by the free market to support a data centre in a large country town, sounds about right.
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I have emailed David Littleproud telling him that he needs to abandon Net Zero. Please can everyone here do the same, in their own words.
David.Littleproud.MP@aph.gov.au
I suspect that Matt Canavan has been in his ear, but that it’s closed. Australia desperately needs a Reform party.
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Do you agree with the concept of net zero then, Ian? Please note – you can be very well educated but still stupid. Witness King Charles the third for example.
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I wrote an article on data centres.
https://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2025/January/Data+Centres+%2526+Cloud+Computing
Not only do data centres and AI use vast amounts of power they can also use vast amounts of water.
I wrote:
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“About 2 /3 of the water used by Amazon data centres evaporates; the rest
is used for irrigation.”
What are they irrigating, lawns and gardens ??
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According to the reference I used, feed crops and pastures. The water is discharged into irrigation canals.
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Irrigating?
Dope, opium and poppy farms, more likely.
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Explains some of the dopes in govt.
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In Perth we have what looks like market gardening immediately adjacent to the Shenton Park sewerage treatment works. The water by that time is potable. I have no idea whether the produce is on sold or if it is a agricultural test plot.
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Harvesting all that waste heat would be an opportunity to generate power with an Organic Rankine Cycle generator, and it would reduce the cooling water losses.
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Not hot enough to make any significant energy. Remember Carnot, energy out is proportional to the temperature difference of the source and the sink. That’s why the power stations use very hot steam.
Hot water, on a bad day, may only be 30C above ambient. Compare that to steam, which will have a delta T of around 300, even on a hot day.
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Ronin makes a fair point about wasted thermal energy. My father designed a double-walled vacuum extracted 50mm steel pipe to duct 110ºC steam to industrial units surrounding UK reactors. His general idea was to provide free steam to run a variety of industrial processes such as mini steam turbines for motive force and heat for the manufacture of plastics. He argued for night-shift industry to utilise the 23:00 to 06:00 electrical generation which was otherwise wasted. His AGRs could not be turned down at night without thermal cycling degradations so they simply left them at 95% full power for 18 months on end. He felt that we were not utilising the energy from a power station efficiently and wanted to see 24/7 electrical use coupled with maximisation of waste heat use even though it might not be profitable.
His over-ridding concern was that by 2050 global population would outstrip Mankind’s ability to provide everyone with affordable electricity. Of course, no-one took the blindest bit of notice of him.
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The problem with 110C steam is that it quickly cools and becomes damp steam and then water.
Corrosion follows very fast. If it was fast flowing, then erosion follows too.
It sounds more like he created a distributed condenser, with water being the return product. Hopefully all the pipes were clean before connecting into the loop.
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About the AGRs you mentioned; were they the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactors? I remember the acronym from the days when Britain did indeed have what was for those days a very advanced nuclear power industry. Of course that industry was later destroyed by politicians, the same sort of politicians who are now trying to destroy Britiain’s remaining industries. Nevertheless you must be very proud of your father’s work from at least the early 1960s onwards.
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What’s the probability that the AI label is just a Trojan horse for CBDCs? Blockchain tech is not very efficient for storing data but in theory it does give an immutable record of txs. It also gives a great way of controlling not only YOUR money but also your whole identity. Think East Germany. The Stasi (sp?) had massive underground data stores – this is what they do!
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Stasi had something like 8 kilometers of racking to store paper spy data, spying on their own people.
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About one in six East Germans were informers for the Stasi.
We see the emergence of that here.
Here is a poster on Victoriastan public transport. SEE LINK.
No one is saying that the described activity is nice or appropriate but you are being asked to report something to police with no knowledge of what a person might be looking at. They might be staring into space, or something behind the person, for example.
https://images.app.goo.gl/tiAc5yChH1z77X6U7
We truly are living in an Orwellian society ALREADY.
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Plus see my post #2.
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Sorry David, yours was still in moderation when I hit post :-(. I agree completely with your comments.
The big question is “what do we do about it?”
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Could someone remind why we need all these data centres. As a child we managed rather well without even a mobile telephone.
Someone told me that Ai could be used to determine where people were inside a building by interpreting part of the returning 5G radio signal. I thought this was some bogus idea until installing my Starlink gear (difficult even with HOURS of tech assistance via Landline). My computer informed me via the Telstra portal that my new MODEM resided on an upstairs landing in my house. It had been there less than a day yet the Telstra super computer had already estimated its precise location. (I now turn it off when not in use tho’ this is also a lightning protection issue)
Can someone explain how this location process works ?
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If you have very precise timing, from three or more well placed towers, then you can tell the distance to any point. If the towers are all at ground level and you are say 20m above them, then the travel times will suggest that the path length is too long to be a single point AT the same height of the towers. So you are either above the towers or below. And since most people wouldn’t put a receiver in the basement….
Or… You told them when you were installing it. Maybe your modem name, “Upstairs”, gave it away.
Or…. Your internet company is spying on you through your web cams.
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John PAK — I have very mixed feelings about AI myself. But the genie is out of the bottle and now the race is on with China. If we don’t do better AI before them, they will have the tools to diagnose diseases, design medicines and poisons, build better bioweapons, drones, anti-drones, missiles, start mining the asteroid belt, and track every goddamn dissenting thought before you even speak it. We are in that race whether we like it or not. The only solution is to be better at it than they are.
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Everyone noticed the little robotic dog that trotted onto the cricket field with the umpires during the Indian cricket series that was halted by the Pakistan attacks? It was very stable and made one think it wouldn’t take much more to have it doing whatever some fiendish mind could dream up.
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John PAK
The price and size of sensors and satellite (GPS) receivers is now so low means they are installed in almost anything electronic. A barometric sensor (or more than one) is included in every smart phone could also be in that Starlink so altitude is simply found (and altitude of the receiver is probably important to optimize your “experience”). Add to that WiFi and Bluetooth and cellular radios (subscriptions paid for by the manufacturer and you don’t even know) they know plenty more about you than you think. This is pervasive in the automobile world now (has been for 10 years or more). Worse the information is being bought and sold.
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I am sick of Climate Change. Utterly sick of it. Humans have not and cannot change CO2 levels. End of argument.
But it would be nice to talk about real developments like AI and its uses. Only the regressive socialist states are still talking Climate Change.
In Victoria we should be looking at every possible way to generate energy. Fracking, coal, gas. I do not include solar and wind because they are completely unreliable and inadequate, non commandable. The only certainty is that there will be zero solar at night.
And our politicans lie to us. Routinely. Massive carbon charges buried in every bill. And they pretend to hand back money to assist the poor who didn’t have a problem until electricity became unaffordable.
In the Liberal party, it is split along Susan Ley’s passion, Climate Change. No wonder Peter Dutton could not attack. And she would rather wreck the joint than give up on Climate Change. The Nationals are better off not tied to a losing position.
And in the US, I have not read of Climate Change this year! Gas prices are lower. Egg prices are lower. 300,000 uninvited Venezuelans may be going home. Tren De Aragua gang members are being put in high security jails in El Salvador, despite the protestations of the Democrats who see these violent tatooed monsters as farm assistants or food delivery people. Which is as ignorant as it is tragic.
Trump’s approval rating is an amazing 55% just after 100 days of promises made, promises kept. Our weasel self serving leaders, planning their comfortable early retirements on other people’s money say one thing and do another. Especially Howard, Turnbull, Morrison,Dutton. There is no Conservative party. And in the UK a woman is in jail for a comment on social media and Keir Starmer is undoing BREXIT, regardless of what the people want.
This is the new lying political animal. Quoting Adam Bandt, “tell them what they want to hear and when we get power, we do what we like”. The Tories and Australia’s Liberals will soon be history too.
As for AI, it is as exciting as it is frightening. It is the ultimate software, a program which programs itself, adapting to the situation. But will it become another Adam Bandt?
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I don’t think so.
See my post #7 in the Wednesday thread.
https://joannenova.com.au/2025/05/wednesday-107/#comment-2849703
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Littleproud then is just as bad as the rest. We may as well have AI politicians.
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Just a minor bit of mind reading Tdef.
I think what you are sick of is not climate change but you (and I) are sick of the climate scam.
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There is no Climate Change. It was degrees colder in 1870. But that happens. Climate change is Siberia to Spain. Frankly warmer is always better. Yes, it’s a scam invented by Al Gore and the UN in 1988. And never proven.
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Yes, I was just a little surprised to see you write that you were sick of climate change.
Keep up the good work. In particular your recent insights on varying radiation received from the sun are most informative.
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The evidence against man made CO2 driven Global Warming is overwhelming. The idea to blame the weather on the industrial revolution is still not challenged at all in politics. Even if 70% of Australians do not believe it.
Now the rapid and illogical destruction of our previously adequate, commandable and totally reliable power systems is hurting us. We cannot compete on the world stage.
China is allowed build 821 new coal power stations and we are not allowed to build one? Who’s the Third World Country now?
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I suppose the Greens will want to ban AI in Australia soon. Then microwave ovens. Washing machines. Leaving the house may require council permission.
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Just keep the public minds directed elsewhere. ‘Climate Change’ is extremely effective at that. I keep remembering men are no good at performing more than one task at a time. Their brains probably can’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time either. Now women……? Perhaps they can lift the bonnet on the car and identify what else is going on as they drive. I think maybe we should all redirect our attention to what else is going on with these governments and Parties. What we already know about is crazy enough, so what else is happening sub judice that we are totally unaware of. Pays to be paranoid sometimes! How often are conspiracy theories proven correct these days, especially since the times of Biden as POTUS?
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The growth in AI processing centers will be limited to the growth in reliable generating capacity. Projections of AI growth do not seem to realize this.
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Australia is going to need a bigger international fibre connection to where the data centres are (will be).
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I wrote an article on undersea cables.
https://www.siliconchip.com.au/Issue/2024/December/Undersea+Communications
You can also see a map of undersea cable connections at:
https://www.submarinecablemap.com/
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100% correct.
The projections for growth of AI without taking into account generating capacity remind of the projections for growth of renewable energy that didn’t take into account building out transmission capacity and connecting all that useless crap to the grid.
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I call BS!
” AI applications are being used to manage traffic, optimise routes, predict maintenance needs and develop autonomous vehicles…In buildings, there is significant potential for AI-led optimisations to make heating and cooling systems more efficient and electricity use in buildings more flexible”
I haven’t seen anything AI has invented, all it seems to be is a just a slightly faster computer doing the same stuff any computer could do, which is the same stuff any person could do, but faster. Manage traffic? Pointsmen do it. Optimise routes? Dispatchers do it. Predict maintenance? Mechanics do it..
Heating and cooling? “HAL, turn up the heating, I’m cold” …”Dave, you’re not cold, the heating is optimised and your sensations of coldness are illusory. The shortage of electricity caused by AI centres have meant there is not enough left for heating more than optimised..”
All this is crap, the only reason for AI is to sift through large amounts of data and sort it, perfect for spying on millions of people, but really another complete waste of human capital, like ruinables. The only advantage I see is that AI companies will have to build their own nuclear power stations and may sell the over-supply to the local community. Work for IBM, get electricity in your IBM-owned apartment block on campus.
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Check out our star on Spaceweather.com
We might be in trouble if the heliosphere dies back any more and the incoming Cosmic Galactic Rays turn Planet Earth in Planet Cloud and REAL Climate Change™ hits us. In a weird sort of way I hope our solar system does upset our lives and maybe we’ll get pragmatic and dispense with hundreds of “Useless Eliters” who actually do zero towards GDP except milk us of some of our hard earned money.
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Think of AI as the new industrial revolution. Steam engines didn’t do anything that people couldn’t do, but they did it far faster and more cheaply. Masses of low-income low-skill jobs were swept away, but overall the population got richer and life improved. Not without a lot of effort by a lot of people to ensure that the benefits were spread not concentrated.
I envisage many middle class jobs being swept away by AI – magistrates would be a challenging example – and society being the richer for it. But it won’t be easy to stop the power being concentrated. Xi Jinping has his eye firmly on the top job, and plenty of others haven’t noticed but are under the delusion that they will rule their own patch.
We the people have a lot of work to do …….
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But it will eliminate many jobs. The McKinsey Global Institute projects that AI could displace between 400 and 800 million jobs globally by 2030. And by 2050 it will be Net Zero (me trying to be funny.)
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I’m suspecting that once these AI centers are up and operating the workforce to maintain them are minimal. So, the electricity supplied is way out of kilter to people employed. That the people are only employed in the building phase. In the past, industries using vast amounts of electricity tended to employ a lot of people. Even at a TESLA gigafactory a significant amount of people are employed. Strange mix. Economic benefits to a regions economy where these AI centers are built, would appear likely to be quite minimal.
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According to Goolag AI:
Where’s this electricity going to come from? Certainly not the sun, wind or Unicorn or Chrissy Bowen flatulence.
And the water?
And Goolag AI also says:
Note to Leftoids: I am very proud to say that that Goolag AI search produced lots of wonderful greenhouse (sic) gases.
Goolag AI is shy about telling me it’s “greenhouse” (sic) gas production but for a similar AI, ChatGPT:
Per AI query 68g of CO2 is produced and a simple calculation shows 68g of CO2 gas occupies 34.5 litres.
Isn’t that wonderful?
Beautiful, life-giving CO2 (what Leftoids call carbon”.
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Just do one AI query and pump put 34.5 litres of CO2.
Just think how much you could produce sitting at your keyboard all day doing random searches.
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So the ideal place to build these AI centres would be close to electricity generation that has a good water supply. Gee, I wonder where there are things that already supply lots of dependable cheap electricity and utilise a dependable local water supply?
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My crystal ball has been a bit cloudy lately, but I wonder whether the cognitive dissonance induced by this issue might just prompt some learning within the bureaucracy. Highly unlikely I know so I present…
My guess is that the world will end up with multilevel electrical grid. High level users such as data centres will have power supplies collocated or nearly so. Low level users such as suburban homes will be stuck with solar panels and intermittent energy requiring vast unprofitable grids totally disconnected from the data centres.
Entire continents such as Australia will simply dangle at the end of overseas fibre optic connections. Cloudless daytime only of course.
Oh well. As a nation we’ve still got sheep, wheat and stuff which can be dug up and exported. Don’t we?
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Except the Government is at war against the farmers.
And Australia doesn’t have a monopoly on useful rocks in the ground.
The biggest consumers like the Chicomms are and have established colonies in Africa to obtain the required minerals and slave labour. Other large consumers like the United States are either self-sufficient or have alternative sources of supply apart from Australia.
I doubt whether the aluminium industry will last much longer. It was run on cheap coal power which is being shut down. Despite heavy taxpayer subsidies to keep them here I think they will move to more favourable places to do business.
The Government plan for aluminium smelting is to run it on “renewables”, an absurd proposition even with massive taxpayer subsidies.
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“Federal government aims to encourage power-intensive producers to switch to renewables by 2036.”
How long would aluminium smelters stay around after they have set up the pot lines a few times.
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I reckon they’re sufficiently astute to close down completely before that happens.
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Hmm! Well worth another look.
I’ve been using the U.S. EIA (Energy Information Administration) data since I started out back in 2008. It’s a mammoth site with so much information, and it’s probably on the scale of an AI Centre as well.
I haven’t ‘been there’ for a while. It ‘morphs’ every so often, so the data you go looking for now gets ‘hidden in plain sight’, so one needs to go looking, but in reality, there’s nothing about power generation you can’t find. All it requires is correct wording in its search engine. So that’s why it has become more time consuming when using the site, and then knowing what to ‘click on’ to find what you need.
They do a two Monthly Update of all power generation, and you can spend huge time just looking at that data of itself.
However, one of the entries there is the total power consumed (hence, generated) in the U.S. and that’s a (seemingly) four thousand plus Terawatthours. (TWH)
It’s actually been around that figure since I started back in 2008. Some years it goes (fractionally) higher and some years (fractionally) lower.
Now, having not gone to the site for a while, I looked specifically for that total, with Joanne’s latest post here in mind ….. the rise in power usage by those AI centres.
So just in the last two years alone, power usage seems to have spiked, keeping in mind what I said above ….. some years up a bit and some down.
Power generation rose in 2024 by around 2.7%, and then in 2025 by around that same percentage, 2.7%. Now here they use a rolling base for comparison, so it can be accurate till the end of the most recent recording period, and with the next one not due for a coupla weeks, (end April) this rolling basis is February to February, if you can understand what I mean here. (and here, see how so much text is needed to provide context)
OK, so, a 2.7% rise may not sound like much.
That 2.7% increase in each of these last two years is actually in the vicinity of 120TWH of power generation. For comparison, just the AEMO coverage here in Oz generates around 214TWH this last year, (2024) so just that rise is U.S. power generation is half of Australia’s total.
So, that recent year on year 2.7% rise is indeed quite a large amount, considering it hovered around that 4,000 mark for so long. Here, they only keep data for the most recent ten years, so back in 2008 when I first checked the site, it went back to 1998, so in effect that 4000TWH dates now at 25 years, not including this rise across the most recent two (rolling) years.
Now, because power generation hovered around that earlier mark, I can only guess the extra power need coming down to the need for extra power needed for AI, as that has only ‘boomed’ in the last two or so years. So, hovering around 4,000TWH since 1998, the most recent rolling 12 Month number is 4344TWH
An interesting exercise all in all.
Huh! Now I’m probably going to spend hours and days looking at the site.
Incidentally, when I started in 2008, I also found, after looking for so long, similar data coming out of China, and there, (in China) power generation was way lower than in the U.S. It took until 2012/13 for power generation in China to rise to the same level as in the U.S. At the end of 2022, power generation in China was ….. DOUBLE that of the U.S. That data now coming out of China is now is now commensurately more difficult to locate. A few years back, they changed their original site from what seemed a ‘rudimentary’ basis to something more akin to the U.S. EIA site, only way way way more huge, and now that data is almost impossible to find. At the start, during the changeover, that data was still relatively easy to find, now, not so much.
Also incidentally, Australia does something similar, only a yearly report, a hundred and more pages long, and that gets released around August or so with data from the previous year, so almost a year out of date. I use the OpenNEM site for (somewhat rudimentary) data and the better Aneroid site, which is easier to navigate, once you know what to look for, Both of these sites are ‘real time’, and depending on what I’m looking for, I use both sites.
Tony.
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2 comments that just out of the page from your post:-
When you consider both those comments are no doubt accurate, WTF is Australia even contemplating ANY emissions reductions when China just bounds along without any concerns. It’s just a huge scam isn’t it?
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In 2023, natural gas accounted for 55% of Virginia’s total in-state electricity net generation, nuclear power supplied 32%, renewables—mostly solar energy and biomass—provided 12%.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Gee what a shock….
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I for one am profoundly grateful that we have had the intellect and leadership of Chris Bowen leading the development of our electrcity grid to face these emerging demands. I look foward to see what will be unveiled under his stewardship over the coming years.
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Don’t forget the “/sarc” tag Yarpos.
New visitors to Jos’ site might think you were being serious.
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You will only see Bowen’s work in daylight.
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“The End Of Massive Data Centers?
That’s the title of Jay Valentine’s second article on his Substack at “https://substack.com/@jayvalentine/posts”
“Fractal Computing” is his disruptor. It makes a lot of sense to me.
He makes extraordinary claims and has the receipts to back them up. Well worth delving into some of his video demonstrations.
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If a nation invests in electricity to power more aluminium production, that produces a tangible product. For example, we can then make aircraft. Many people think that is a good thing, better than going without them.
If a nation invests in more electricity generation to power AI centres, what does that produce? The output is words and they are intangible.
So, what is the purpose of more AI? Have any readers seen a good description of purpose? My personal thought is that it is welcomed because it provides an excuse for lazy people to do research and investigation for them. It also might relieve them of some responsibility for mistakes. Just blame imperfect AI.
Where are the answers to important questions? If like me, you detest warfare, will AI reduce the level of death and destruction from warfare? What is the position on AI of the profitable military industrial complex?
I’d like to see a forum discussion on what Australia might gain or lose from the forecast large investment in more electricity to power new AI centres. Start by assuming that they are not inevitable of necessary, that is, not in the same “no answer needed” category such as people having sex.
Geoff S
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AI can indeed be used to reduce the level of death and destruction from warfare. I would argue that it is already absolutely essential. AI can already fly a military drone far more effectively than a human, and the rule always has been : Those who desire peace should prepare for war (Flavius Vegetius Renatus, 4thC).
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Perhaps more effective use of drones would INCREASE the level of death and destruction, otherwise there is no point to their use, militarily speaking.
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I’ve been thinking the Coalition might have dodged a bullet by shutting down our car industry when it did, making cars is not the money spinner it once was, with CCCCP entering the fray and arguably doing a good job, who could compete with them.
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Someone moved Omaha 800 miles west. That would take a lot of energy!
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“In buildings, there is significant potential for AI-led optimisations to make heating and cooling systems more efficient and electricity use in buildings more flexible”
Smart folks are already doing this without, so called, AI. I’m familiar with a building in-progress on the grounds of Central Washington University, Ellensburg. It is a geothermal project that will use water at 68 degrees F. at 800 feet deep.
Search-up “north academic complex cwu”.
Go to “images” also. Much is said of the CO2 issue, of course, but they are looking to save money and have buildings with better heating and cooling.
These things cost loads of money and take time.
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Wake Up Australia = Look at the money flowing into the USA and AI in particular –
President Donald Trump completed a successful tour of the Middle East that resulted in foreign investments surmounting to over $3.2 trillion. President Trump believes that $10 trillion in capital will flow to US, a staggering amount of money, equal to over half of the DIJA’s entire market cap. The $10 trillion figure remains aspirational rather than set in stone. American manufacturing declined under the last administration, but we are looking at a sharp uptick over the next few years.
The White House separately publicly disclosed $5.1 trillion in US investments, $2.1 trillion of which were derived from corporate investments and the rest from foreign capital. This falls short of Trump’s $10 trillion figure but still marks an impressive injection of capital into the US economy.
Technology is at the forefront, with investments pouring into Artificial Intelligence (AI). DataVolt, Humain, and G42, and other Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds plan to assist in funding AI development in the USA. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) pledged $1.4 trillion into US tech, AI, industry, and space. Saudi Arabia is also investing in American AI, along with energy, defense, and infrastructure, all to the tune of $600 billion. Qatar is sending $1.2 trillion to the US for developments in tech, infrastructure, and defense.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/world-trade/10-trillion-in-capital-flows-to-us/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=RSS
Maybe the USA has a reliable Electrity Grid.
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Self Described – ENERGY TRANSITION26 – ‘Madness’: Cannon-Brookes intensifies green energy push
The Atlassian billionaire says Australia should have the cheapest energy prices in the world and called for more renewable projects, saying ‘constraining power’ was ‘madness’.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has expressed doubts that batteries or grid-forming inverters are enough to provide grid security and resilience.
But Mr Cannon-Brookes was adamant that renewables could support Australia’s energy transition, saying data centres that power AI were using more solar, wind, batteries and other forms of green energy and storage.
Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes has called for more renewable energy developments to take pressure off electricity prices and to ensure Australia gains its fair slice of the artificial intelligence boom, saying to “constrain power” was “madness”.
The Australian Energy Market Operator has expressed doubts that batteries or grid-forming inverters are enough to provide grid security and resilience.
The Nationals, meanwhile, are aggressively pushing ahead with its argument that nuclear power is the only way to achieve net zero, citing the Liberals’ retreat from atomic energy as a cause for tearing up the coalition agreement.
But Mr Cannon-Brookes was adamant that renewables could support Australia’s energy transition, saying data centres that power AI were using more solar, wind, batteries and other forms of green energy and storage.
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I bet Mr C-B is a NIMBY.
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The problems with electricity supply in South Africa have nothing to do with renewable energy and everything to do with failure to maintain the infastrucutre built more than two decades ago.
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Nothing comes, nothing, from countless millions.
Whether dollars or Watts, just a waste of resources.
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