OPINION:
There are moments when events conspire to clarify that a page has been turned, something fundamental has changed and events and people are no longer likely to flow in the same direction.
Sens. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican, and Joe Manchin III, West Virginia independent, this week offered up proposed legislation ostensibly to improve federal permitting, but in reality, is a mishmash of provisions that would give the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission more power over the nation’s transmission system. The proposed legislation is grounded in the idea that soon, the United States is going to build thousands of miles of large interstate transmission lines in an effort to address climate change or whatever.
That’s certainly possible and perhaps even likely, but the immediate history isn’t encouraging. For the last few years, we have built a few hundred miles of high-capacity transmission lines each year, rather than the thousands of miles that people have projected we need to meet President Biden’s goal of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.
The legislation’s remedy — more federal involvement in the process — seems unlikely to make much of a dent. If you want to speed something along, the right answer is probably not more bureaucracy, more process and more lawyers.
Around the same time, and much more importantly, Google published a report about its progress toward its corporate goal of reducing its net greenhouse emissions to zero. It will not surprise you to learn that it is not doing particularly well. It may surprise you that it identified the surge in demand for electricity associated with data centers and artificial intelligence as an important reason why it did not do well.
As the report noted: ”Our total GHG emissions [in 2023] were 14.3 million (tons of carbon dioxide), representing a 13% year-over-year increase and a 48% increase compared to our 2019 target base year — primarily due to increases in data center energy consumption and supply chain emissions.”
Google’s demand for power — typically produced by natural gas-fired generation — overwhelmed its good intentions. The company did not seem particularly concerned about failing to adhere to its own timelines, nor should it be.
The United States and American companies must win the contest for global supremacy in artificial intelligence. The alternative — a world in which China’s slaving, genocidal regime dominates AI — is inconceivable. Google understands that, and it is willing to set aside climate change goals if necessary to ensure that we win this contest.
Data centers are estimated to require as much as 400 gigawatts of added installed capacity in the next 10 years. That amount of electricity is equal to the entire residential use of electricity in the United States. The average task given to AI takes about 10 times as much power as the average query to Google.
The data centers are likely to insist on generation on or near their locations to avoid exposing themselves to the vagaries of the larger transmission system. As a practical matter, that means a substantial amount of natural gas generation — and pipelines to feed those power plants — will need to be built in a very compressed timeline, certainly within the next decade.
In short, it seems as if we are heading toward a simple and stark choice: Win the AI race and give up on the notion of net-zero greenhouse gases by 2050, or ever, or cede AI leadership to the regime in Beijing (which, perhaps coincidentally, has specifically eschewed committing to net zero by any particular date).
Few voters prioritize climate change, and fewer are prepared to spend more than a few dollars a year to address it. Almost everyone, however, cares about AI, our adversaries in China and our ability to maintain American technological dominance.
The legislation proposed by Mr. Barrasso and Mr. Manchin already seems dated, like the final, wandering argument right before closing time. The conversation has already pivoted to what we need to do to win the AI contest and the important role that affordable, reliable electricity — whatever its provenance — will play in that victory.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor to The Washington Times.
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