I used to worry about stuff like this and the climate in general. Thanks to Trump, not anymore though. I now worry about WW3 and the collapse of civilization instead.
In many cases the best solution would be to retrofit the existing facilities and leverage the transmission infrastructure that is already in place. Retrofit doesn't necessarily mean we continue to burn coal, but it might. Without the aid of a time machine, continuing to burn coal (or even restarting a plant) for a limited period of time may have less incremental impact than other options.
I understand the urge to tear these facilities down, but if we actually care about the environment a more nuanced path is probably ideal.
"The researchers identified two main reasons for the uptick. U.S. electricity demand grew at an unusually fast pace, driven in part by an expansion of power-hungry data centers for artificial intelligence. To meet that demand, electric utilities burned about 13 percent more coal last year than they did in 2024.
...
...the researchers said Mr. Trump’s policies would take time to have an effect and they mostly weren’t responsible for last year’s rise in emissions."
> In a reversal, the [EPA] plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.
All that power has to come from somewhere. The idea that all this AI is powered by “green” energy and unicorn farts is just a bunch of PR puffery from tech companies trying to divert attention from the environmental damage they’re causing.
The uncomfortable truth is that AI is the biggest setback on our path to energy sustainability we’ve seen in a generation.
Yep, someone was bragging recently they used 13B tokens last year. At 8mg CO2/token that's ~100t of CO2. Consumption of 5 households (or 200 NYC-London flights) just for vibe coding!
>The idea that all this AI is powered by “green” energy and unicorn farts is just a bunch of PR puffery from tech companies trying to divert attention from the environmental damage they’re causing.
Do we have a solid breakdown ala Our World in Data for the energy mix mused to power AI Datacenters?
The only thing I have seen is the facility that Musk acquired in Memphis for Grok is illegaily emitting more pollutants than allowed because of Musk's insane drive for speed and it is causing health problems in the underlying poor community.
Its the reason I will never use Grok but i've been curious about where ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are hosted. Google has had a history of efficient data centers and they are running custom silicon so i'd assume they are the best here?
i feel the fact coal is so often considered separately from oil and gas to be very suspicious. Cant help but feel demonizing coal is plays into the interests of petro states.
Obviously we should be moving to green energy, but coal provides energy independence and doesnt fund horrid regimes..
a Coal plant seems way better for world peace than LNG plant
the cost savings could be put to developing green energy faster
> At the same time, colder winter temperatures led many buildings and homes to burn more natural gas and fuel oil for heating last year.
Which none of "shut down the AI DC's", "stop burning coal", or "build more wind & solar" would do squat about.
Maybe we should be looking at boring, pragmatic programs to improve the heating energy efficiency of the worst (say) 5% of America's buildings & homes?
This has to be the 4th or 5th time I’ve shared this link on HN. Sadly the WH made it very clear that they do not care about the real cost of coal. Here they proudly shout about “beautiful clean coal.” Anyone who believes this ridiculous rebranding of coal really should not be making decisions on it, and those who know better but repeat it are even worse: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/rein...
We’re moving backwards. They actually think we want to work in coal mines again by the hundreds of thousands.
I'm a huge green energy supporter, but the data belies the headline. These types of headlines are often leverage to discredit the transition.
1. US emissions didn't jump. See the first chart. The 2.4% increase easily falls within 1 standard deviation of typical changes. In that line, US emissions have remained flat since 2019.
2. The caption over that chart uses more neutral language "U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2025" instead of jumped. Which is it?
3. The 2.4% increase in emissions matches 2.4% increase in energy use nationwide.
4. The title is structured to make it sound like coal power is primarily causal of the emissions increase even though that's clearly not the case.
Unrelated point: Coal quite literally poisons the air. Why are activists so fixated on the abstract specter of climate change to convert others? I'm pretty sure we could win over lots of MAHA types with that framing.
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[ 2.4 ms ] story [ 69.2 ms ] threadNot per capita. Absolute.
Any other questions?
I understand the urge to tear these facilities down, but if we actually care about the environment a more nuanced path is probably ideal.
https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/over-100-coal...
...
...the researchers said Mr. Trump’s policies would take time to have an effect and they mostly weren’t responsible for last year’s rise in emissions."
> In a reversal, the [EPA] plans to calculate only the cost to industry when setting pollution limits, and not the monetary value of saving human lives, documents show.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/climate/trump-epa-air-pol...
All that power has to come from somewhere. The idea that all this AI is powered by “green” energy and unicorn farts is just a bunch of PR puffery from tech companies trying to divert attention from the environmental damage they’re causing.
The uncomfortable truth is that AI is the biggest setback on our path to energy sustainability we’ve seen in a generation.
Energy usage goes up for all societies, no matter how efficient we make things to be.
Our living standard goes up with more electricity (EVs for example require more energy, as would more electrification of things).
The real problem is no investment in alternative sources like Nuclear.
We've had this debate before and the usual renewable only crowd only see as far as today's usage to say what we 'need'.
Do we have a solid breakdown ala Our World in Data for the energy mix mused to power AI Datacenters?
The only thing I have seen is the facility that Musk acquired in Memphis for Grok is illegaily emitting more pollutants than allowed because of Musk's insane drive for speed and it is causing health problems in the underlying poor community.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VJT2JeDCyw
Its the reason I will never use Grok but i've been curious about where ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are hosted. Google has had a history of efficient data centers and they are running custom silicon so i'd assume they are the best here?
Obviously we should be moving to green energy, but coal provides energy independence and doesnt fund horrid regimes..
a Coal plant seems way better for world peace than LNG plant
the cost savings could be put to developing green energy faster
> At the same time, colder winter temperatures led many buildings and homes to burn more natural gas and fuel oil for heating last year.
Which none of "shut down the AI DC's", "stop burning coal", or "build more wind & solar" would do squat about.
Maybe we should be looking at boring, pragmatic programs to improve the heating energy efficiency of the worst (say) 5% of America's buildings & homes?
My understanding from news is that coal is more expensive than even natural gas.
In my mind, the only viable way out is the power density of nuclear. Datacenter should not be ordered by taxpayer subsidized energy.
We’re moving backwards. They actually think we want to work in coal mines again by the hundreds of thousands.
1. US emissions didn't jump. See the first chart. The 2.4% increase easily falls within 1 standard deviation of typical changes. In that line, US emissions have remained flat since 2019.
2. The caption over that chart uses more neutral language "U.S. greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2025" instead of jumped. Which is it?
3. The 2.4% increase in emissions matches 2.4% increase in energy use nationwide.
4. The title is structured to make it sound like coal power is primarily causal of the emissions increase even though that's clearly not the case.
Unrelated point: Coal quite literally poisons the air. Why are activists so fixated on the abstract specter of climate change to convert others? I'm pretty sure we could win over lots of MAHA types with that framing.