Last week, ExxonMobil made an announcement to little fanfare. It signals a much wider trend that reflects both opportunity and concern for anyone seeking to deploy clean, community-centric distributed energy solutions in an equitable manner. Some call it the next “gold rush”. But instead of material that you can see, smell or handle, this time it’s for something that is infinitesimally small and short lived. We’re talking about “free electrons” - otherwise known as electricity. For the first time in its long history, the energy behemoth is getting into the business of producing electricity.
What is driving the surge in demand for these precious subatomic particles? Of course, the transition to electrical vehicles and heat pumps plays a key role. The rise of crypto currencies like Bitcoin feeds this hunger too. These trends have been on the horizon for some time. Their pace of adoption has been throttled by various infrastructural, institutional, and societal factors. What caused the likes of ExxonMobil to forsake its abstinence from the power market is the rapid emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) – think ChatGPT - and its voracious appetite for electricity. A ChatGPT search draws more than 10 times the power of a standard Google search. In its whisper like announcement, ExxonMobil laid bare its intentions to develop natural gas power plants dedicated to powering this new arsenal of electricity ravenous generative AI data centers. They claim that these plants will come with carbon-capture technology that will reduce carbon emissions by 90%. Even if accurate, it still reflects an increase in emissions… at a time that we need to drastically cut them!
AI will generate immense wealth. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see that wealth spread more equitably throughout the population rather than concentrated in the hands of the richest corporations. How cool would it be if this demand was met by clean, locally owned distributed energy resources (DERs) rather than the ExxonMobil’s of the world? It might take more time and more money to implement such a strategy, but that might not be so bad. Generative AI comes with a host of societal risks beyond its massive energy appetite and carbon footprint. What’s so bad about taking more time to intentionally nurture the vast social benefits it can bring while mitigating its potentially catastrophic detriments? For those who cite “national security” and “competitiveness” as the reason to rush … isn’t getting a technology of such enormous consequences right a matter of national security regardless of whether the threat is internal or external.
Let’s conclude with an appeal to the smart folks leading the charge to develop and deploy generative AI. You are on to something big. Please don’t follow in the footsteps of predecessors in industries of similar ballistic trajectories - who’ve - in their ride to riches - planted ticking societal and environmental time bombs for future generations to diffuse. As you develop this next generation of tools intending to shape a happier, healthier and more constructive civilization, consider doing it with free, fair and clean electrons! That’s really what Beacon Climate Innovations and it’s ecosystem of climate tech, community and energy partners in the form of the Resilient Energy and Infrastructure (RE&IC) at Greentown labs is all about.
Let’s start a dialogue! Email us at admin@beacon.climate.com.
PS In the interest of saving energy and reducing carbon footprint, this was not written with the help of generative AI.
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