It’s fucking insane how much is invested (both money and natural resources) in the emperor’s new clothes. Let’s scorch the planet because every idiot out there buys into the marketing and hype. We are utterly and truly doomed because of ourselves.
Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal
Submitted 2 days ago by cyrano@piefed.social to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/10/datacenter_coal_power/
Comments
madsen@lemmy.world 2 days ago
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 2 days ago
Future generations will look back on the pre apocalypse population and call us sleep walkers. I know, as I’m one of them. Life is difficult enough already without jeopardising my freedom as the only way to change our course is violence at this point.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 2 days ago
the only way to change our course is violence at this point.
Sadly, yes.
ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
There’s still time for a general strike. The country would be brought to its knees if suddenly deprived of profit and labor. That tactic was extremely effective in Chile in 2019, and had they not fallen for the trick of liberal reform, they would’ve had a successful revolution on their hands with virtually no bloodshed.
If you aren’t in a union (or even if you are, it’s worth dual-carding), please consider joining the IWW to unionize your workplace (bonus: you’ll get higher wages, better benefits, and more time off if you succeed!) to strengthen a general strike if we manage to enact one.
And for our international friends, you should join one as well, as fascism is gaining momentum globally. If your country isn’t listed below, just contact the IWW directly in the link above.
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 2 days ago
All of these problems are caused by a remarkably small network of people. I’m not even necessarily talking about the CEOs. It’s the boards of directors. This is also the pool from which CEOs are drawn one and the pool to which CEOs return after their golden parachute. They function as a living repository of evil. A warehouse of criminals and nepo-babies. (Ex: Airbnb guy joined DOGE and is on teslas board. So first he destroys the housing market for a generation, and then destroys the government, and he is the person who directs Tesla.)
Like, could fit in one big room.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Future generations will look back on the pre apocalypse population
If it makes you feel any better, our '01, '08, '14, and '20 recessions all put hard downward pressure on carbon emissions.
If Trump manages to throw us into the first full blown Depression in a century, he may do more to curb US emissions than any president in history.
tree_frog_and_rain@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Reminds me of this song. Carbon based lifeforms. World of sleepers
nosuchanon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
AI and the investment around it are literally the only thing holding up America’s economy right now. If you take the artificial growth and the vast amounts of investment that are being pumped in AI development data centers, the US economy has barely grown half percentage point.
No surprise that they are going to power this beast at all costs until it falls apart along with the US economy.
AA5B@lemmy.world 2 days ago
No surprise that they are going to power this beast at all costs
I mean, they could use their fascist power grab to drive through the infrastructure work to expand power transmission lines needed to support a modern economy, renewables, and yes more datacenters
Additional coal is just the easiest way since we already have century old power lines bringing that power where it’s needed
Yes, in this case, coal might be easiest, cheapest, fastest because we can continue to neglect infrastructure. It’ll fall apart on someone else’s administration
sgtgig@lemmy.world 1 day ago
We were too addicted to AI slop to save ourselves.
Actually no, no one was addicted to AI slop, it was just shoved into every product so that huge companies could make a profit and everyone hates it.
But wait! The huge companies are losing tons money on this.
Why did we destroy the planet again???
sobchak@programming.dev 1 day ago
The capitalist class loves the idea and rewards companies with investment money. They think it could be the ultimate tool to snuff out any power the working class still has; making many employees optional, total surveillance of the population, etc. I think it will be a long time until it can do many jobs, but the surveillance tech seems to be coming along pretty well (with “AI” cameras recording license plates and biometric identifiers being put up everywhere).
Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Wish my coworkers would get the memo. Constantly trying to shove AI videos in my face like “haha look at MLK Jr and Tupac as pro wrestling announcers haha”
As an artist I am deeply repulsed by AI. But other people around me? They love it for some reason.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 day ago
its the techbros that are obsessed with AI slop.
theacharnian@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Meanwhile China is going all in on renewables.
Here is a fact: an authoritarian non-democracy is doing a lot for securing the future of humanity, while the “leader of the free world” are vandalizing the climate and accelerating apocalyptic climate catastrophe.
In 2025, China is a net positive for the future of humanity, while the USA is a net negative.
If that makes you uncomfortable about what our political and economic systems in the West that brought us here, well, you know the meme: “facts don’t care about your feelings”.
If you, like me, care about the future of democracy, we have to do a LOT of digging.
neighbourbehaviour@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Our current system is going about how Marx predicted it would. The course correction that occurred after the Great Depression has been now completely reversed and we’re back staring at its approaching collapse. I don’t think we can escape that long term, and lose democracy in the process, unless we start moving away from capitalism. We gotta attack private firm ownership. Otherwise we’ll keep getting people accumulate enough capital to buy the rest of the system and steamroll the rest of us for profit.
Corridor8031@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
capitalism was kind of never democratic i think, considering so much is basically dictated by the people who “own” it, which feels more like a dictatorship/ feudalism
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Meanwhile China is going all in on renewables.
BUT
AT
WHAT
COST
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
We are a nation of man/woman childs. Petulant little kids who don’t want to grow up and be responsible for anything.
Mertn33@lemmy.world 1 day ago
And a lot of burying.
slaacaa@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell
FenrirIII@lemmy.world 2 days ago
And capitalism!
DegenerationIP@lemmy.world 2 days ago
And I thought AI killing us would use cool robots and Shit. Well.
Rooster326@programming.dev 1 day ago
So close, they will use coal robots and Shit.
TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip 23 hours ago
It’s the paperclip maximizer in action.
zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
Republicans are kinda like robots
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 1 day ago
TBF it requires minimum effort from the ai. Efficient.
Rooster326@programming.dev 1 day ago
We don’t know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky
AniZaeger@lemmy.world 1 day ago
“Ah, arrogance and stupidity all in the same package. How efficient of you!” - Londo Mollari
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Hooray for cancer, asthma and bronchitis! Make America Healthy Again. Lung health is like Karate – black is the best!
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 2 days ago
What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger! Or chronically ill, but in a cool way, really.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 day ago
they built it in red states, because theres less resistance to regulate polluting data center, and in rural areas.
betanumerus@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
The O&G industry has been pushing itself as a supplier to power AI. Don’t blame AI without O&G.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Why not blame both?
betanumerus@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
AI people choosing renewables have nothing to do with this.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
People get distracted over the fate of the pure speculative frenzy could be an AI bubble, and the harm to the hapless speculators and banksters could have a minor impact on the rest of the economy.
Reality is far worse than an AI bubble. It is a US mission for a fossil fueled powered Skynet for Israel that is too big to fail. Bubble in AI investments becomes unlikely, but total destruction of rest of US economy/prosperity becomes assured when the “plebs able to eat in America bubble” bursts is a sacrifice that a fossil fueled powered Skynet for Israel is willing to make.
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Earth was past 7 of 9 planetary boundaries to support human life… before AI happened. That is again, boundaries to support HUMAN LIFE.
Article from when it was 6/9:
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Fuck AI and these energy guzzling data centers. For decades we were told to conserve power and such and now all of those savings are being sucked up, and more, by these centers.
ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 2 days ago
Remember, everytime us plebs are told to sacrifice for the environment it’s so the corpos and parasites can off load moral responsibility onto us.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 day ago
they funded alot of campaigns doing that.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 day ago
its actually raising electricity prices in many areas.
muusemuuse@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
And for some reason OUR utility bills are going up to pay for it.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yep. People are charged the marginal cost of power generation. Everyone pays the price of the most expensive source of electricity. The market is rigged.
FlowVoid@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Datacenter != AI
If you are using the internet for anything with cloud storage, you are contributing to datacenter growth. And that includes nearly everyone using social media.
kcuf@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Sure but energy use per datacenters was on a downward trend before ai, then it went the other way hard
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Datacenter != AI
Except the demand for new data centers is driven entirely by the capacity constraints of the current AI models.
If you are using the internet for anything with cloud storage, you are contributing to datacenter growth.
“Why are you mad at my SUV when you just adopted a pet chihuahua? They both emit carbon!”
FlowVoid@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m not sure that’s true. Every company uses storage, and every growing company needs more. But very few companies are training generative AIs.
balance8873@lemmy.myserv.one 2 days ago
Yes but data center growth prior to AI was manageable. There isn’t a grid on the planet (except maybe china?) which can support the growth of AI data centers.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The bitcoin miners have hopefully dropped off because they were chewing up gobs of energy too.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 1 day ago
china is also building lots of coal plants to sustain the datacenters.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This would be 99% of businesses at this point.
betanumerus@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I’m perfectly fine with Lemmy being limited to renewable power.
Raiderkev@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Disgusting
you_are_it@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
Hey, regime 🖕
a4ng3l@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Looking forward the 2026 ESG reports of large companies that are so happy to embrace AI :)
puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I think you would have an easier time searching for those who didn’t.
a4ng3l@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m not into gold panning… though it’s not like all companies are using AI so much that it will transpire in their ESG. Now I now a couple that were so far very happily ignoring this source of carbon and, as far as I remember, it was not reported by the cloud providers either.
betanumerus@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Another reason to avoid the US.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Our most advanced tech is dependent on some of our most old tech.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
It doesn’t make any difference whether they use coal, nuclear, or renewables.
If they were using renewables the rest of us would need the coal generated power to keep the lights on.
Tetsuo@jlai.lu 2 days ago
And the nuclear ?
You skipped it somehow.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
you seem to have missed my point.
If humanity’s energy requirements without AI are x, and AI’s requirements are an additional y, then AI is reponsible for the worst energy sources up to the value of y.
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
There’s one exception - when they are self-sufficient, or even net positive, with renewables.
One example is the Google datacenter in Hamina, Finland. They build it in an old unused paper mill, built their own solar farm, and they use the cooling loop for district heating for the city. That extra heat provides around 75% of the required heating, meaning the city could stop relying on their old natural gas heaters so now the district heating runs on renewables as well.null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I’ll begrudgingly concede that this is a good point.
Part of me wants to say “just force these assholes to build renewables without the datacentres” but I know that’s nonsensical.
I guess this is how carbon credit schemes are intended to work, but I’m aware that aside from a few specific cases carbon trading has just been a way to obfuscate carbon emissions.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Crash can’t come soon enough
SkaraBrae@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“We need a new plague” - Dwight Schrute
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 2 days ago
The people can stay, it is the AI that has to go.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The ones advocating for corporate greed and AI are the same ones talking about a birth rate crisis. I guess they just want more proles to slave for them and damn the ones who die young in the process.
Fuck this timeline
hairyfeet@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Are you one of the too many people?
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Will it crash, though? It’s replacing people, and people are expensive.
LodeMike@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Yes. This tech can’t replace people like some think it can. Most companies aren’t reducing head count just outsourcing.
turdcollector69@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s doing a shit job at replacing people, it’s still too prone to hallucinating for the vast majority of its applications.
In many of the applications where AI has replaced people the promised performance gains never materialized because of the insane amount of babysitting a LLM agent requires.
Doesn’t matter if it can write 10 hours of code in 5 minutes if you still need a software dev to troubleshoot the output for 25 hours.
They have like 90% reliability (figure pulled directly from my ass) but they need 99.99% reliability to actually be effectively reliable.
They’ve burned through all their hype and still haven’t made it reliable yet. I think they’re not going to get it done before the bubble collapses.
It’ll be similar to the dotcom boom, infinite hype implosion collapses the market to a few core players and then those core players will get there over the next 15 years.
Isn’t going to disappear but it’s absolutely going to fade into the background of day to day life.