Wow, this is a nasty, dirty, polluting stunner I didn’t see until just now.
Anthropic, the AI company behind Claude, has reportedly signed a $3.4 billion contract to buy gas-fired engines (power plants) from OnePWR Solutions, a Texas-based energy company. These gas power plants would be able to provide Anthropic’s AI data centers with an enormous amount of off-grid electricity — with the real cost being an enormous amount of air pollution and global warming emissions.
If you thought Anthropic was supposed to be “the good guy” in the AI industry, perhaps think again.
The Financial Times, which broke the news on this, says that this is the “largest known single purchase of power-generation equipment by an AI lab.” It’s this line from Futurism that really sums up my feelings: “It isn’t just symptomatic of a desperate race to secure the necessary utilities: it’s also one of the clearest signs yet that the AI industry has turned its back on the growing climate crisis in favor of
pollution-spewing gas generators it’s installing across the globe.” Indeed.
It’s one thing to be racing to be a leader in this field, but to turn to polluting, climate-destroying gas power plants instead of solar and wind power, that’s absolutely disappointing and — frankly — morally disgusting.
For the heck of it, to see what this company’s AI bot thought about the power choice it made, I decided to ask Claude “Are gas power plants harmful to our climate?” The response was as follows:
“Yes, though they’re less harmful than coal and more harmful than most alternatives.
“Bottom line: Gas is a cleaner fossil fuel, not a clean one. Its climate impact is best judged by what it replaces (coal vs. renewables) and by how tightly methane leaks are controlled. Carbon capture could reduce plant emissions, but it’s still costly and not widely deployed.”
So, yeah, when you’re choosing to buy $3.4 billion worth of gas power plants instead of renewable energy power plants, that is without a doubt going to be a horrible decision for our climate. I’m sure if I asked Claude about the risk humans race from climate change, the answer would not be uplifting. But I’m not going to go there.
Instead, I’ll turn back to Futurism for this summary: “Researchers have found that the effects of AI on the environment are nothing short of devastating. And the prognosis for the future is grim. Last month, environmental nonprofit Sierra Club estimated that upcoming AI data centers could release 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, wiping out nearly 15 years worth of greenhouse gas reduction efforts.”
Indeed — we’re facing drastic increases in emissions from the very dirty AI industry. The good news is people are already showing they’re fed up with AI data centers. Apparently, out of 41 ballot measures related to data centers that were up for a vote in the recent midterm elections, only one (1) went the way of the AI industry.
That said, I don’t see investments in growth stopping right now, as is evidenced by this $3.4 billion gas engine order and OpenAI and others burning through billions of dollars a quarter.