#energyusage — Public Fediverse posts

Block Club Chicago: Blue Island Data Center Planners Get Booed By Residents. “Blue Island residents said they were concerned about potential noise coming from the center as well as water and electricity usage, and how the center could affect housing in the city. One resident, a recent college graduate, told the council that while studying she took courses focused on the ethics and societal […]

TechSpot: Microsoft’s $1 billion Kenya AI data center could require switching off “half the country”. “It would bring foreign investment, a new Azure cloud region, and a facility powered by geothermal energy, but there’s a problem. According to Kenyan officials, the project would require a massive amount of electricity in a country where the grid is nowhere near ready for AI-era demands.”

Ars Technica: Senators want US energy information agency to monitor data center electricity usage. “Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Republican Senator Josh Hawley are urging the US’s central energy information agency to provide better information on how much electricity data centers actually use.”

Tom’s Hardware: Russia cracks down on ‘illegal’ cryptomining with prison terms up to five years — Kremlin will begin prosecuting in 2027. “Russia is preparing to move cryptocurrency mining from a regulatory gray zone into the core of its criminal law, with penalties ranging from fines to prison terms of up to five years. The draft legislation is expected in 2026, reports CNews.”

Texas Observer: Crypto’s Cryptic Texas Takeover. “State regulators don’t want you to know about the 60-plus Bitcoin mines guzzling public water and electricity—even though consumers are already paying the price.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/11/16/texas-observer-cryptos-cryptic-texas-takeover/

Countries are struggling to meet the rising energy demands of data centers

#Mexico’s lagging energy grid is forcing companies, including #Microsoft, to use generators.

By Daniela Dib and Pablo Jiménez Arandia, 15 September 2025

Excerpt: "That Mexico’s electric grid is struggling does not bode well for a country trying to position itself as a data center hub, and which is already home to 150 #DataCenters, including from Microsoft, #AmazonWebServices, and #Google. Together, they have invested over $7 billion in the country since 2020.

"Like Mexico, countries around the world are scrambling to meet the rising energy demands of data centers, spurred by a boom in #ArtificialIntelligence and #CloudComputing. Like Microsoft, some companies have tapped alternative — and sometimes more #polluting — energy sources. Mexico’s power grid faces a deficit of 48,000 megawatt-hours by 2030, which is more than half the country’s output in 2023, according to the Mexican Institute For Competitiveness, a research center. As the country lures more data center-related investments, more companies may follow in Microsoft’s footsteps.

" 'This case is part of a broader global pattern, particularly in areas where the rapid deployment of #DigitalInfrastructure is outpacing the #EnergyGrid’s capacity,' Marina Otero Verzier, a visiting professor at Columbia University who researches data centers, told Rest of World. 'In some cases, corporations frame fossil-fueled generators as temporary solutions, which, over time, become normalized.'

"Microsoft set up its data center last year in #ColónMexico, an industrial hub with a population of over 67,000 people, but was unable to plug into the country’s energy grid, which is itself largely powered by #FossilFuels. In documents filed to Mexico’s environmental secretariat in 2023, Microsoft said the grid would not be fully operative to the company until mid-2027 due to 'long construction times required in [Microsoft’s] contract with CFE,' referring to the Federal Electricity Commission. The following year, the secretariat approved Microsoft’s request to use seven generators to temporarily power its data center.

"A spokesperson for Microsoft declined to comment on how the company is powering its data centers in Mexico now, and whether it will continue using generators.

"Worldwide, nearly 60% of the electricity used by data centers comes from fossil fuels including #NaturalGas. #Renewables including #solar and #wind meet more than a quarter of the demand, according to the International Energy Agency. But while the share of renewable energy is increasing, the rapid growth in the demand for data centers is outpacing the expansion of renewable energy infrastructure, posing a challenge to the climate goals of countries and tech companies alike."

Read more / listen:
https://restofworld.org/2025/ai-energy-supply-data-centers/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

#EnergyUsage #AIDataCenters #AISucks #CoPilot #CorporateGreed #CorporateColonialism #WaterIsLife #Polluters #BigOilAndGas #BigData #CorporatePolluters #AI

Tom’s Hardware: Google quietly removes net-zero carbon goal from website amid rapid power-hungry AI data center buildout — industry-first sustainability pledge moved to background amidst AI energy crisis. “It appears that Google is starting to hide its internal climate advocacy goals from the public eye. The internet titan has silently removed its goal to ‘pursue net-zero emissions’ across […]

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/09/07/toms-hardware-google-quietly-removes-net-zero-carbon-goal-from-website-amid-rapid-power-hungry-ai-data-center-buildout-industry-first-sustainability-pledge-moved-to-background-amidst-ai-e/

Digital Asset Exchange OKX Joins Ethereum Climate Platform to Foster Sustainability - Source: AdobeStock / AndriiKoval
OKX Ventures, the investment arm of cryptocurrenc... - https://cryptonews.com/news/digital-asset-exchange-okx-joins-ethereum-climate-platform-to-foster-sustainability.htm #energyusage #regulation #ethereum #miners #news #ecp #okx