The mighty Columbia River has powered the American West with hydroelectricity since the days of FDR’s New Deal. But the artificial intelligence revolution will demand more. Much more.

Microsoft’s Ambitious Bet

Near the river’s banks in Central Washington, Microsoft is betting on generating power from atomic fusion—the collision of atoms that powers the sun. This breakthrough has eluded scientists for the past century, and many predict it will elude Microsoft too.

The tech giant and its partners claim they will harness fusion by 2028, an audacious claim that bolsters their promises to transition to green energy but distracts from current reality. The voracious electricity consumption of AI is driving an expansion of fossil fuel use, including delaying the retirement of some coal-fired plants.

Experimental Clean-Energy Projects

Big Tech is going all in on experimental clean-energy projects with long odds of success anytime soon. In addition to fusion, they hope to generate power through small nuclear reactors hooked to individual computing centers and machinery that taps geothermal energy by boring 10,000 feet into the Earth’s crust.

Environmental Concerns

“Coal plants are being reinvigorated because of the AI boom,” said Tamara Kneese, a project director at Data & Society. “This should be alarming to anyone who cares about the environment.”

As tech giants compete in a global AI arms race, a frenzy of data center construction is sweeping the country. Some computing campuses require as much energy as a modest-sized city, turning tech firms into some of the world’s most insatiable guzzlers of power.

Electricity Consumption

Data centers, the nondescript warehouses packed with racks of servers that power the modern internet, have been around for decades. But the amount of electricity they need now is soaring because of AI. A ChatGPT-powered search on Google consumes almost 10 times the amount of electricity as a traditional search.

Sustainability Commitments

The data-center-driven resurgence in fossil fuel power contrasts starkly with the sustainability commitments of tech giants Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and Meta. All of which say they will erase their emissions entirely as soon as 2030.

Industry Skepticism

“Predictions of commercial fusion by 2030 or 2035 are hype at this point,” said John Holdren, a Harvard physicist. “We haven’t even yet seen a true energy break-even where the fusion reaction is generating more energy than had to be supplied to facilitate it.”

Promises that commercial fusion is around the corner feed the public’s belief in technological miracles that will save us from the difficult task of dealing with climate change.

Future Prospects

Microsoft hopes to supercharge clean energy deployment through its partnership with fusion start-up Helion. While there is enough hydropower generated in Chelan County to send electricity throughout the West Coast, most of it has already been claimed decades into the future.

Helion has raised expectations with assurances that its contract with Microsoft is binding, and it will have to pay serious financial penalties if it does not quickly create fusion electricity. However, the specifics of the contract remain undisclosed.

For more details, visit the original article on The Washington Post.

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