AI’s footprint today is likely the smallest it will ever be; how are we going to power it in the future?
It may sound bluntly obvious, but energy is power. Those who can produce it, especially lots of it, get to exert authority in all sorts of ways. It brings revenue and enables manufacturing, data processing, transportation, and military might. Energy resources are arguably a nation’s most important asset. Look at Russia, or Saudi Arabia, or China, or Canada, or Qatar, or—for that matter—the US. For all these nations, energy production plays key roles in their economies and their outsize global status. (Qatar, for example, has a population roughly the size of metro Portland, Oregon.)
The US has always been a nation of energy and industry. It was a major producer of coal, which fed the Industrial Revolution. World War II was won in large part by the energy production in the United States—which fueled both manufacturing of the war machine at home and its ships, planes, and tanks in the Pacific and Europe. Throughout its history, the country has found strength in energy production.
Yet in many ways right now the US seems to be forgetting those lessons. It is moving backward in terms of its clean-energy strategy, especially when it comes to powering the grid, in ways that will affect the nation for decades to come—even as China and others are surging forward. And that retreat is taking place just as electricity demand and usage are growing again after being flat for nearly two decades. That growth, according to the US Energy Information Administration, is “coming from the commercial sector, which includes data centers, and the industrial sector, which includes manufacturing establishments.”
