In its latest gift to oil and gas companies, the Trump administration is expected to announce plans today to weaken rules that guard against methane leaks. Methane is a smog-forming pollutant and a powerful greenhouse gas that’s up to 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide on a 20-year horizon. It’s the primary component of […]
As it prepares to go public, Anthropic’s S-1 filing makes generative AI’s methane dependency glaringly obvious. “Competition for access to electrical supply and data center locations with adequate power availability is intense.” In documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission Monday, Anthropic acknowledges that data centers are becoming increasingly reliant on “natural gas” […]
A rush of new data centers could bring air pollution roaring back to levels not seen since the 2000s in Texas, which has become ground zero for the physical infrastructure behind generative AI. New and proposed data centers are demanding a tremendous amount of electricity. How developers and utilities meet that demand – with gas […]
The US is building more fossil fuel infrastructure than it has in a decade while renewable energy growth slows down, a new report shows. Electricity demand is also climbing faster than it has in more than a decade with more data centers, factories, and electric vehicles plugging into the grid. Despite those growing demands, the […]
Old-school physics-based weather forecasting and even new AI models typically become less reliable beyond two weeks, a problem Microsoft claims to have solved using machine learning. Researchers with the company say they’ve found a new, cost-effective way to make more accurate weather forecasts two to six weeks in advance – allowing farmers and emergency responders […]
Google announced a new agreement to update six nuclear power plant sites across the US as the tech giant seeks to generate more electricity for its power-hungry data centers. Google signed the 20-year deal with Constellation, the leading nuclear power plant operator in the US. The power purchase agreement is meant to guarantee the revenue […]
A rather strong “planetary wave” recently slammed into South America and is making its way toward California. In case you’re worried about headlines warning of the supposedly “freak” phenomenon “bringing trouble,” it’s worth understanding what this wave really is and isn’t. Called a Kelvin wave, it’s carrying warm water to the Americas that’s typically trapped […]
San Antonio City Councilmember Ric Galvan remembers when data centers first arrived in his city in the 2000s, looking like relatively unassuming office buildings. But that’s changed in recent years, as data centers have grown into massive “hyperscale” facilities spanning millions of square feet and housing the physical infrastructure for AI. There are now more […]
The US Department of Transportation finalized its plans today to weaken fuel efficiency standards, calling it “among the largest deregulatory actions under the second Trump Administration.” It’s a nail in the coffin for Biden-era standards that would have required fleet average fuel economy to reach 50.4 miles per gallon by model year 2031. President Donald […]
As Jensen Huang puts it, AI can help fight climate change – but only if it inflicts “an enormous amount of pain and suffering” first. The Nvidia CEO discussed the future of energy and AI’s impact on our planet in the latest episode of The Ezra Klein Show. But his comments boil down to the […]