Re:AI's energy footprint
by zdp7 on Wednesday May 21, 2025 @06:52PM
(#44057061)
I'm pretty sure this is false. Here's my reasoning.
A google search claims water use uses 12.7% of US energy.
Another search gave 11.7% US energy goes to powering AI (projected to increase to roughly 25% by 2030).
Taking into account hydropower power provides 6.2% of US energy, I feel comfortable saying your statement isn't true.
To further strengthen my statement, I would like to point out another statistic. NPR gives us an estimate of 300K gallons of water use/day to cool the average data center. That pretty much guarantees an LLM query produces more carbon than my filling a cup from a gravity fed water system filled by rain.
A google search claims water use uses 12.7% of US energy.
Another search gave 11.7% US energy goes to powering AI (projected to increase to roughly 25% by 2030).
Taking into account hydropower power provides 6.2% of US energy, I feel comfortable saying your statement isn't true.
To further strengthen my statement, I would like to point out another statistic. NPR gives us an estimate of 300K gallons of water use/day to cool the average data center. That pretty much guarantees an LLM query produces more carbon than my filling a cup from a gravity fed water system filled by rain.