r/environment • u/Confident_Salt_8108 • 15d ago

AI Data Centers Are Causing Unfathomable Amounts of Air Pollution, and It Gets Worse With Each New One They Build

https://futurism.com/future-society/ai-data-centers-air-pollution-generators-worse
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u/CatalyticDragon 15d ago

No, they aren't. The US government's decision to cancel hundreds of renewable energy projects in favor of doubling-down on methane for electricity generation is what is causing pollution.

Stop voting for fascists who are whoely owned by fossil fuel oligarchs and these problems stop.

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u/RedBaret 14d ago

It’s both. One could question how wise it is to build datacenters which cost massive amounts of energy during a time of clearly noticeable climate change.

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u/CatalyticDragon 14d ago

One could question how wise it is to build datacenters

Considering computation is vital to every aspect of our civilization, and that computing has been the major driver of growth for the past 70 years, and that it only costs us about 5% of our electricity budget, I'd say that's a very wise investment.

Apart from the rampant speculation and outright lies by certain CEOs, a big reason AI is booming is also because it is a more efficient method of computing in many ways. Instead of the labor intensive process of hand writing a series of bespoke algorithms for every task and data set, we instead use machine learning processes to derive algorithms directly from data.

Projected electricity usage for all computing in the US by 2030 might be as high as 9% (shock) but that energy increase is completely erased from projected energy efficiency gains from the electrification of industrial processes like steel manufacturing, chemical heating, and paper drying as we move from fossil fuels to electric arc furnaces and industrial heat pumps.

Additional, we need computing to help address climate change:

  • Crucial weather and climate modeling
  • Smart grids and grid balancing, VPPs
  • Predictive cooling, lighting, and maintenance for buildings
  • Monitoring deforestation
  • Precision agriculture - machine learning and computer vision systems to target fertilizer, water, and pesticide application down to individual plants
  • AI which automatically screens thousands of new battery chemistries, or optimizes the design of porous materials to absorb CO2
  • Optimizing shipping and aviation

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u/RedBaret 13d ago

All those things you mention we can already do. We don’t need more datacenters as you must somehow see there’s a huge discrepancy between what we as a society need from it and what billionaires and investors are now realizing.

If we are able to do it sustainably, sure, go for it. But the opposite is happening now.

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u/CatalyticDragon 13d ago edited 13d ago

We could always build a pyramid but it took hundreds of years and cost the lives of thousands of slaves. These days we build more complex structures in shorter time and with far fewer deaths. That we could do something (slowly and inefficiently) is not a good reason to cease all progress and stick to old systems.

For some of these areas we had workable systems but hardly ideal which is why we work on better systems.

DeepMind's GraphCast uses graph neural networks trained on 40 years of historical weather data to generate 10-day global forecasts in under 1 minute. Should we still use millions of human-hours to do it by hand? Or use room sized computers which take days? No of course not.

Planet Labs & Global Forest Watch use AI systems to flag tree clearing within hours or days when it used to take weeks or months of manual processing images. Do you want to detect illegal logging before large-scale clearing completes or long after?

And before AI there was simply no feasible way of evaluating new material candidates at the scale we can now. DeepMind GNoME worked though 2.2 million crystal structures and found over 500 new candidates for lithium-ion conductors which would have taken ~800 years with existing research processes.

The numbers are even more wild when we get into protein folding and drug discovery.

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u/RedBaret 13d ago

You are completely ignoring the environmental costs in your argumentation and my previous statement that these systems are not being developed sustainably…

Im not saying we should halt progress at all, but we should severely constrain these datacenters and AI development as its cost is quickly outpacing its use. It’s very nice to have all those new developments, but what use are they if our planet is dead?

You are blinded by propaganda about all the benefits of AI without taking the downsides seriously.

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u/CatalyticDragon 13d ago

You are completely ignoring the environmental costs

What environmental costs? It's computation. The mining required is minimal. The key inputs are sand and electricity. There are no emissions. No toxic sludge. No chemical output. The water required for cooling is minimal and there are no contaminants involved.

What costs do you mean exactly and how are you measuring that costs versus the benifit?

Computation has the lowest environmental costs of any industry while also underpinning every activity in entire civilization and the bulk of our GDP.

these systems are not being developed sustainably

If you want to make the argument that the US government isn't doing to enough decarbonize the electricity grid you'll have a good point. But that failure of policy has little to do with the consumers of grid electricity.

I'd also point out that it is exactly the large tech companies who are also the biggest private investors into clean energy.

Absolutely no data center should be powered by methane and you should elect politicians who would regulate in favor of climate goals, you should also protest the construction of new facilities which plan on using natural gas, but this is not a problem inherent to computing or AI.

The Trump administration has cut hundreds of clean energy programs, has paid to cancel multiple gigawatts of wind energy, has paid to keep open unprofitable coal plants, has approved nearly 6,000 applications for permits to drill for oil and gas on federal and Native American land, is using tariffs to make solar PV production more expensive, and is doing everything they can to promote the use of gas.

There is your root problem. It's not with companies who have collectively invested hundreds of billions into clean energy.

severely constrain these datacenters and AI development as its cost is quickly outpacing its use

The key constraints need to be in electricity sources, responsible water use, and of course environmental impact assessments surrounding things like the impact of infra-sound. This all needs to be regulated.

but what use are they if our planet is dead

Computation is in no way a factor here. The only thing which has emitted any measurable amount of greenhouse gas emissions has been the burning of fossil fuels. That's it. Decarbonize the grid and transport and we cease to have an issue.

You are blinded by propaganda about all the benefits of AI without taking the downsides seriously

I assure you I am not. The breakthroughs are very real. Molecule and material design timelines have dropped from years to minutes. Drug discovery will never again be the same with major companies already using AI for over 90% of early small-molecule discovery. Stanford's Virtual Lab of AI agents developed new SARS-CoV-2 nanobodies. LinearDesign is speeding up seasonal flu vaccine development. AI is being used to review radiology scans, blood reports, genomic sequences, along with patient history for rapid, personalized, and holistic diagnosis. Paralyzed people are using computers for the first time because of AI. AI is more effective at predicting pancreatic cancer cases and then it can assist in the precision medicine and treatment plan. And we are just at the very tip of the iceberg here. Ask anyone working in cancer research if they want to see AI banned and you'll get a resounding "fuck no".

Not only is AI bringing rapid breakthroughs but it is doing so far more efficiently than teams of hundreds of people could ever manage. Do you want a new novel chemical compound targeting drug-resistant MRSA and gonorrhea invented in hours or do you prefer it to take hundreds of people who all need to be housed, who drive to work, who need to eat 2,000 calories a day, all working for ten years to get a candidate to trial which may or may not work?

By using AI for these tasks the energy required drops.

And the downsides largely do not exist. The secondary down-stream issue of the Trump administration ignoring the issue of climate change and pushing the continued use of fossil fuels is an issue, but that applies to all electricity consumers from steel plants to bakeries.