A recent Washington Post article on continued coal use in Nebraska, “A utility promised to stop burning coal. Then Google and Meta came to town,” fails to note the important global dynamic of why coal remains in demand to power data centers here in the United States.
Artificial intelligence may be the most significant technological and economic development since the creation of the internet. As such, the United States is in a race against other countries to develop and deploy generative AI. China recently announced they have invested more than $6 billion dollars in the construction of new data centers. If the U.S. fails to build and power our own new data centers, these investments and their economic and national security benefits will simply go overseas.
The energy demands of AI are enormous. A single ChatGPT search requires nearly ten times the electricity as a Google search. Another Washington Post story recently noted that utilities have nearly doubled their projections for the additional power they will need over the next five years, and that demand is expected to continue growing.
AI and its demands for power are here to stay. The question is whether its benefits will be primarily seen here or abroad. In the near-term, the United States will need all available sources of energy, including coal, to fuel this critical technology. Thankfully for the residents of Nebraska, the energy demand needed to power those new data centers could be met by the dependable power that coal provides.