The INSANE effect of Artificial Intelligence on Climate Change.

Artificial intelligence is transforming our lives every day. Internet of Things devices now control building temperatures, humidity and lighting, and even know what each of us is doing. It's all designed to optimise energy efficiency and minimise the carbon footprint. So, should we let Artificial Intelligence take over the job of fixing the climate?
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Research Links
IEA - Energy Efficiency 2023
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IEA : How energy efficiency will power Net Zero climate goals
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United Nations - Cities of the Future
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Danfoss : Energy efficiency is the key to kick-starting climate success
www.reuters.co...
Danfoss - The neglected demand side of the green equation
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LumenCache website
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75F Website
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Brainbox AI website
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Passive Logic website
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Clockwork analytics website
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Gridium website
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Audette website
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World Economic Forum : Zero carbon buildings
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[@drabbit61]

I'm a simple, 63yr old Tasmanian-Kiwi. 30 yrs living in SE Asia. But somehow, as a kid in Tassie even I understood that GDP and such terms for economic growth, which require and promote a user mentality of more, more, more is a path to destruction, both social and most importantly natural - our environment. As a species our growth is rapidly destroying our humanity. In my own lifetime, our planet has lost 50% of wildlife; I stress wild LIFE, while population has more than doubled and GREED has, somehow become the respectable norm. WTF?

[@ricos1497]

Yes, and I don't think the video really addresses that. In the rush to promote exciting innovations, it doesn't stop to ask why. The lighting and heating solutions for large offices (no mention of the cloud computing consumption offset) don't answer the question of why we need all these offices. What are all these companies providing? Do we need any of the stuff being peddled? Are they simply moving money around the money system, like so many financial districts of the world? The efficiencies we're actually targetting are the ones that assume everything stays exactly the same as it is. Of course, the biggest efficiency savings that we could make are those introduced by ending our economic growth system. The system that insists everyone is born into debt and needs a mortgage (or rent) and thus must have a job. These are system constructs, and are exceptionally inefficient. They drive people to monetise absolutely every inch of existence. I (because I'm part of the problem) look around my oversized home, and at least 50% of the stuff in it could go tomorrow and I'd happily get by. Things sold as comfort, progress etc, that are actually nothing of the sort - they only exist because of the need for economic growth, solving problems that don't really exist. It gets worse when I look at the endless screeds of tat that my children have been bought, placing them firmly on the consumption path. The endless toys sold at my daughter, too young to understand the system, with parents too tired and distracted to make the case for not buying this shite. Each item with its own lifecycle of emissions and waste, destined for landfill, of course. If we lived in an economy that had no advertising, no marketing, with a focus on living with just enough. That laughed at those with too much, because they're the real idiots (me included). An economy that didn't measure success by growth and wealth by having stuff. Imagine how much we could do away with? Imagine there was no such thing as the social and economic concept of the commute? Wouldn't that be progress? The magical solutions in Dave's well presented video are simply an extension of the problem. They don't actually solve anything, and nor are they intended to. Each one of these products is designed to sell and to make money for their owners. They are all based on the premise that they need to sell more to make more money, and perfectly align with the growth model. I wonder if Dave (sorry to pick on you Dave!) has considered that he'll still be here in 10 (and 20) years time making exactly the same videos? Perhaps he can make a video on it! It is a sobering thought. I suspect the thing that will supplant Dave's videos is not that there will be no need for his messages, but that some technological development has made his output redundant without solving the underlying problems.

[@oldoneeye7516]

Less is more for everybody. Dont consume what you can, consume, what you need and teach that philosophy to your friends and neighbours. Capitalism will collaps, the only question is, when. If you have learned to live with less then you will be able to cope. Also, your life will be so much better and richer for it.

[@ArohaKiwi]

Fellow 63 year old Irish-Kiwi here 😁 Our species population is being corrected by climate change. Current behaviours can support about 2 billion. At least half of us will die. Marginal areas will be most effected. AI would do better as the governors of sustainable policies, but we are too short sighted to allow this.

[@ricos1497]

@@ArohaKiwi there's nothing short sighted about not allowing AI to govern us! AI, or LLMs, are programmed by humans, with human goals. What particular goal would an AI have otherwise? What would it want? They are all programmed within the existing system, and thus heavily biased towards the metrics and standards of the existing system. Hence why we have AI trying to calculate ever-efficient methods to perform activity X, without actually asking: "why are you doing activity X, anyway?". AI is the answer to nothing, other than more economic growth and more resource use.

[@lindseyhatfield9017]

Thoughts from a 61YO Aussie So right, our whole mental attitude has changed as a human race. We used to care for each other and work to enhance the human race and the planet. Now we are taught to be competitive, you MUST win, you MUST have better than the other person, if they do better, knock them down rather than study and practice to better yourself. This is all part of the corporate attitude as well, beat others, knock down what others build so you can win, even at the expense of the world. The Government is the same, just look at terminology we have government and "OPPOSITION" , if only they/we could work together ! Why do our shopping centres need a 15 meter diagonal display on the outside of a building 24 hours a day, to use power and remind us we are missing out. City buildings with lights on all night, why ? Air conditioning to make us a cold 18c in Summer and Hot 24c in winter, set them for a mild 21c always. And no more AirCon on all day for the Dogs at home, pushing heat outside for everyone else to deal with. Mind you now we have so much solar and wind we are starting to look for additional load for our grid, only 4 years ago we had to Shed Load in summer. We need more shared batteries.

[@ItWasSaucerShaped]

i am extremely skeptical of the trend that says our best solution for addressing the consumption culture that is causing climate change is to consume even more products - just green ones this time should we address car dependency? no, says that culture - instead, buy electric cars should we address our wasteful & trivial use of electricity for lighting? no, says that culture - buy high tech lights instead

[@Burtis89]

Absolutely correct, because they can't stall the growth model. Consume or be consumed. People want the same lifestyle (it's a hard sell to change that lifestyle) so it easier and more profitable to sell you something more efficient. I bought a small very efficient 1 litre petrol car and a electric push bike at a cost of around £7500. Both of these are more efficient than what I had before but that £7500 would have got a lot of petrol in the old car maybe around 40-45,000 miles. The bike has meant I do half the amount of car miles though. But how long do I have to ride it to offset it's Co2 production cost. Considering also that the battery has a lifespan. Our old 60% efficient boiler system was removed in favour of a Heat Pump that is around 400% efficient at a large expense 🤔 Personally I'm doing these things for the benefit of the natural world not bothered so much about people they can adapt and overcome, animals cannot if too much change happens too fast. But I've not really changed my behaviour/lifestyle just the systems I'm using to do the same tasks. Is it fruitless maybe, maybe not... Sorry waffled on a bit there was just bored and wanted to say something to someone about it all Comments for the algorithm 😂

[@LumenCache]

It's true we naturally get used to having conveniences, and it's hard to give them up. Part of the "fancy lights" is that it consumes much less Copper and adds controls consuming far less than wireless controlled lights. During the IMPEL cohort from lbl.gov, we calculated LC would save 1.3Gton of CO2 if widely adopted vs traditional lighting. Every little bit counts.

[@davidx.1504]

Agrowth > green growth > degrowth

[@sbk2207]

We should promote both public transportation and EVs like china did.

[@JoshTheWhale]

There's immensely more important issues such as the power sources which feed into the grid, global agriculture and farming practices, industrial building solutions such as production of concrete, efficiency of technologies... basically corporate profit races in unregulated conditions.

[@nallebrean]

I work with energy efficiency in large buildings in Sweden and all this AI magic company try to reach us. Our answer are still that we are very far away from the need of AI to make our customers buildings way more efficient. They need to start turning of the things that not are in use, adjust the airflow to demand, replace old inefficient air handling unit and increase the efficiency from 50% to 80%. Adjust the timer from 24/7 to the time the bildning are used (that's too common). It's a buzzword. We had a salesman on visit not knowing what the system actually did.

[@TheLRider]

Agree 100%

[@vidyagaems4063]

Half of the things you've enumerated are the things the AI is proven to be great at handling. You've made a great case for the "buzzword", not against it.

[@wannabewallaby1592]

Those are things that you can do without relying on AI. The problem is people lump any kind of software usage as "AI". AI in layman context has become a marketing term

[@DSAK55]

AI is the magic spice you sprinkle on everything to make it taste better

[@bjb7587]

​@@DSAK55to make it cost more.

[@Mivoat]

It’s all great until you realise that today’s cloud data centres are using about two Japan’s worth of power. The boom in AI is going to multiply that by several times.

[@jameslamb4573]

Didn't I hear something about moving them into orbit and feeding off the sun? IIRC it was fairly recently ...

[@Jacob-yb6bv]

These systems are the biggest growth area of energy consumption. They will pale into complete insignificance any energy savings made by them.

[@jimthain8777]

@@Jacob-yb6bv I don't think you're right about that.

[@hurrdurrmurrgurr]

@@jameslamb4573 That was already torn apart by Scott Manley, the radiators on such a data centre would be ridiculous and the whole thing would be too large to manoeuvre around space junk. A data centre in orbit is a one way trip to Kepler syndrome.

[@mathewklatil5455]

@@jameslamb4573 Investor scam, it is stupid and works only if you think about it for 10 seconds. Moving stuff into space is too expensive, and datacenters arent small computers that consume loads of energy, they are big computers. Secondly it becomes impossible to do routine maintinance of these systems because getting tech support there costs you a rocket and needs weeks of planning in advance. The machines we send into space are relatively simple. Yes, they have tons of top engineers working on them, but most of it is making sure it survives in spaces, all the telescopes are just cameras that send simple data back to Earth as far as I know. I am probably wrong, but it is still much much simpler then a datacenter. Thirdly even in space the amount of solar panels required to power it is too great, you would need much much much greater area of just solar panels then the mass of the computers. Datacenters are large buildings, you would need 20 times that square area of solar panels for that. Even ignoring the cost of putting that stuff up there it would still spew so much space junk in forms of tiny metal splinters over time and potentially crash into other space junk. And finally the problem of heating. Yes, space is extremely cold, but its also practically a vacuum. There is no air that would transfer the heat out, so you would have to rely solely on infrared radiation, which is extremely inefficient. Actually smart idea would be to build them near really cold shores with some power source nearby, something like Iceland potentially, but those places are rare and they also have governments that have different laws and problems with citizenship and people worrying about outsourcing stuff.

[@TheDanEdwards]

About those high-rise office buildings: forcing people to commute every day from their distant, suburban residences will consume far more energy than what will be saved by AI turning off the lights and A/C every time an office room is vacated. Long before AI people were turning off the lights when they left rooms.

[@Leftistattheparty]

Imagine if businesses had to pay for travel costs that workers currently shoulder in order to go into an office.

[@luipaardprint]

As a European I’m becoming a bit tired of having to write this, but here in Europe etc. etc…

[@danshillabeer9523]

Dave one of the most profound statements I've read in a very long time is that nature is (and should be recognised as) critical national infrastructure. What do you think?

[@natchaos5604]

I agree 👍

[@manuelmeyer4228]

When I was a teen in the nineties, I read a book my father had bought as a teen in the seventies. The authors argued that we should think of nature as a life-support system on spaceship earth. We destroy it, we die. The idea has certainly been around for long enough. It just didn't have much of an impact.

[@waqasahmed939]

It's one reason why my parent's country planted 1.5m trees and their next target is 1bn trees The point of reforestation in Pakistan also helps greatly with floods. It's a win / win. I like how in Wales, they plant a tree for every child born there too. We should really do that in England too imo

[@trueriver1950]

International. AND Intergenerational.

[@jasenanderson8534]

Totally agree there

[@FriederikeTyrer]

transcribethis AI fixes this. Artificial Intelligence's insane climate impact.

[@JonathanFrost]

In economics, the Jevons paradox occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the falling cost of use induces increases in demand enough that resource use is increased, rather than reduced. Governments, both historical and modern, typically expect that energy efficiency gains will lower energy consumption, rather than expecting the Jevons paradox.

[@jamesgrover2005]

@@JonathanFrost thankfully we have a fusion reactor in the sky

[@acchaladka]

Thank you, no one consistently brings this point forward enough. His core point about avoiding use - conservation before efficiency- stands, however, as does the idea that raising input cost lowers total usage and inspires substitutes and innovation. Imperfect answers but answers nonetheless.

[@skierpage]

People uncritically spout Jevon's paradox. If I buy an efficient car or improve insulation TO USE LESS ENERGY, I _don't_ immediately go blow the money saved on consuming more energy!! I'm more likely to invest it in further energy saving. People _aren't_ trying to maximize their economic output. And for companies Jevon's paradox is subsumed by the general critique that their economic motivation is to grow, so _any_ kind of efficiency improvement tends to result in more economic activity which has environmental consequences. That's a valid critique of growth economics that don't fully account for externalities, and it's why companies have to be held to their commitments to be "carbon neutral" by some far-off 20X0 even when they grow and enter new businesses like the current AI boom.

[@adamnealis]

What does that tell us about economics and economists?

[@XenoCrimson-uv8uz]

@@adamnealis They have tunnel vision.

[@MelindaGreen]

What is being served by having everyone work in office buildings other than the egos of mangers? Why not let as many workers work remotely as we can? Then we can convert those office building into efficient living space, solving the inefficient house problem at the same time.

[@jwnomad]

I don't work well from home. I'd rather watch videos or play games than do boring work. In the boring office there are no distractions so work is less boring than doing nothing.

[@aldenpartridge4773]

​@@jwnomad We definitely will still need some office space, some people work better in in-person environments and some actions just can't be done remotely. However, we can for sure reduce the amount of office space and have less people in the office.

[@MelindaGreen]

@@jwnomad It's not for everyone, and not all the time. I just think it should be your choice if that's something you can do from home.

[@shyft09]

​@@jwnomadwell you can go to the (now smaller) office then, as long as you aren't trying to force everyone to do what _you_ want to, it's all good

[@f1neman]

I had a thought.... Injection of AI and cloud computing into things that may not need it surely adds to emissions given how energy hungry data centers are?

[@jimthain8777]

How do you decide which things It may not be needed for? Until you've tried using it to analyze something you have no idea what improvements it can find that you hadn't thought of yet.

[@f1neman]

​@@jimthain8777 As someone who spent years working at a senior level in IT I'm acutely aware that the latest buzzword has to be crammed into projects to get them financed, irrespective of the potential real benefits. AI is suffering a huge hype at the moment, with most projects predicted to fail. So what is uncertain (as you admit) is the potential benefit, but what is not in doubt is the environmental cost. So those things need to be weighed against each other.

[@CampingforCool41]

@@jimthain8777shit like ChatGPT and image/video generators are guzzling energy and water and they are not necessary.

[@hurrdurrmurrgurr]

​@@jimthain8777 You judge whether those things could have been done without the energy hungry ai. Anyone can tell you that running the air con in an empty building is stupid and there are plenty of ways to set timers on things without needing an ai to turn off devices after close. The rest of this stuff isn't things we haven't thought of it's things management hasn't bothered with, triple glazed windows and insulation lower cooling bills who could have thought of such a thing, maybe in a few years the AI will be advanced enough to tell us to install curtains.

[@liamtaylor4955]

A new suite of technologies requiring more mining, refining, manufacture, pollution, disposal, landfill dumping, nano plastics, PFAS, water usage, etc., and all to tackle just ONE symptom of ecological overshoot, climate change.

[@gasdive]

There's very little need for this. Just "controlled load" as used in Australia for decades. A "ripple control relay" sits in the meter box and anything that can be permanently wired in and which is safe to run unattended is connected. The network decides when there's a need to increase load to balance the grid and a "ripple" is sent down the grid to turn the relays on. When there's a need to decrease load, a different ripple turns them off. So your storage hot water, pool heater, underfloor heating or whatever runs long enough to meet all your needs for 1/3rd the normal cost, while the grid gets a way to keep everything balanced.

[@petewright4640]

A twist to energy efficiency that saves money is that it puts more money in people's pockets that then gets spent on other polluting stuff. Its the 'save money with energy efficient light bulbs and so be able to afford an overseas holiday' effect. No net benefit for the environment. We have to somehow get people to want to limit thier consumption.

[@nickcook2714]

That's probably either an extremely cheap holiday or you need to start turning a few lights off, even if you're still running on incandescent🤔 But of course your point is right, if people save money on something they're eventually going to spend it on something else, which could be even worse for the planet.

[@Mivoat]

You’re absolutely right, it’s called the Jevons principal. For example, the industrial revolution took off only when James Watt produced his much more efficient steam engine. Similarly, aviation has boomed with today’s more efficient jet engines.

[@AntonBrazhnyk]

You can't limit the consumption in this economic system. Consumption is directly converted to profits and profit is sacred in capitalism. So, with capitalism we are doomed.

[@KenLeonard]

@@AntonBrazhnyk- consumption isn’t due to capitalism, it is human nature. Capitalism does and has, however, pulled billions of people out of abject poverty.

[@danielfaben5838]

The most likely and sure method to limit consumption in todays connected world is to limit humans. Since everyone likes have a toothbrush made by some factory so effectively that they get a great deal on it (so it goes with shoes, clothes, food, and every other so-called consumer good) no one is going to volunteer to give up the conveniences of our industrialized lifestyle. We wouldn't know how to start! I certainly don't. So it will take death to allow anyone the pull that toothbrush out of my grasp if we take this notion to its logical conclusion.

[@bonniepoole1095]

Does the energy saved by buildings controlled by the cloud and AI take into account the large amounts of energy used by the Cloud and AI (or are we hiding the energy being used?)

[@webchimp]

It's an externality.

[@skierpage]

Just have a think. The companies offering to save energy have to pay their compute costs, much of which pay for data center electricity consumption. If they used more energy than they save, they would go bust. We'll see.

[@makersinclair]

But that cost gets translated to the corporation they are monitoring. Also, they aren’t selling efficient products, or more efficient than what they are consuming from the cloud, the could care less what they are consuming from their stuff on the cloud. They can care about selling the idea and the dream of being green while not practicing it themselves and can still turn a profit

[@skierpage]

@@makersinclair obviously, If whoever's paying for the compute electricity pays more than the energy it saves, these companies have an unprofitable business model and will eventually fail.

[@richdiana3663]

I'm positive I'm not as smart as I once was, which might be a blessing in my antiquated state. I've become a Doomalist living in my ever denuded, rewilded acreage and not seeing anything being done to reverse our suicidal, homicidal, ecocidal footprint from 16.2 billion plodding feet. Darker Ages beckon.

[@jamesgrover2005]

The numbers aren't good but it's not the present number that has caused the present CO2 level. "The richest one percent of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity during a critical 25-year period of unprecedented emissions growth." - Oxfam

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@jamesgrover2005 The poorest half of humanity deserves a decent life. Fortunately, they will be able to use cheap solar and wind technology from China to improve their lives without polluting the air. They will be able to use GHG-free concrete and steel to build things that they need, because people in developed nations have invented technology that will allow that. By the time they can afford to fly in airplanes, those planes will be far cleaner, perhaps fossil-free. I would worry a lot more about what all those poor people would do when they finally get some resources, but they can now leapfrog the Western world, going directly to the future without passing through the coal age.

[@PinataOblongata]

​@@incognitotorpedo42 That's a lovely story, and may even be happening in a few areas, but the evil multinationals are never going to just roll over and die when they have so much power. You would think no new populace would be smoking, now that "everyone" knows how bad it is for you, but those aspirational populations are just seen as the next new market and all the same tricks that were employed to keep their product around our developed countries for so long (and still not banned, note) are employed again by the merchants of doubt and evil. The fossil fuel corps might not LET the green tech you speak of flourish any further than a lab and a video here. They have captured the governments via campaign donations and other bribery and thus they make the rules and incentives. We only see enough tinkering around the edges to prevent a full-on revolution, real change is not going to happen while they are pulling the strings and techno-feudalism is the system we all simmer in.

[@prerunnerwannabe]

With all of the hype surrounding AI, I would suggest listening to the podcast called "The Great Simplification" and specifically episode 132 featuring Daniel Schmachtenberger called: “Silicon Dreams and Carbon Nightmares: The Wide Boundary Impacts of AI” It has really changed my thoughts and understanding regarding AI, and has helped me realize that the notion of AI somehow being the climate's savior is fundamentally false and is not going to really help lower emissions, at least within the current framework of externalizing negative impacts.

[@jimthain8777]

I think it will simply because it thinks of solutions we haven't had the foggiest idea even existed. That's not saying it's a panacea for all our problems, it isn't, and it does come with significant costs of its own.

[@Yanquetino]

I confess that I don't grok the obsession with "growth" with anything -the economy, profits, population, energy, etc. Last I checked, the planet isn't growing. Isn't it high time that we started to prioritize maintaining, sustaining, holding steady instead…? I dunno. My suspicious nature suggests to me that efforts to transition to newer systems isn't simply to improve efficiency, but to increase corporate profits by spending less. It's like when they replaced checkers at grocery stores with self-checkout scanners. Were those scanners really better, more efficient, more accurate? Or were the bosses now simply pocketing more of the wages previously paid to employees? Hmmm.

[@Azknowledgethirsty]

To not increase the economy might be OK for the developed countries For 80% of humanity however it's either growth or poverty

[@toadvine9264]

You see they are restarting TMI in order to power AI? This will not offset fossil fuel emissions a one bit. Jevon's paradox par excellence.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@toadvine9264 How does a nuclear plant not offset fossil fuel emissions if it replaces coal or natural gas fired generation?

[@stevewilliams2498]

​@Azknowledgethirsty The growth problem talked about includes the human species, too. The crux of all the dilemmas is that there are too many humans. We are an infestation.

[@speters17]

​@@AzknowledgethirstyNonsense. Mathematically impossible infinite growth is not even remotely the only way to reduce poverty, just the main way in the current fundamentally flawed (and ultimately impossible) model. What's more, the model actually encourages and ultimately can only lead to more inequality, which is the actual issue. A set number for 'poverty' is nonsense - what is poverty in one location is enough for all your necessities in another. The inequality in a system is what determines whether you can afford to eat, and so any system with an endpoint of maximising inequality will only ever fail at reducing 'poverty' longterm. If the rich countries committed to immediate degrowth and caps on energy and resource use, maybe we could get away with using that flawed model to enable poorer countries to set themselves up to ensure everyone is able to access necessities. But that would entail not just an end to unfair competition, but also active technology transfer, ending unfair and illegal debts, and (in the capitalist mindset) boosting your competitors' competitiveness. There's a reason that hasn't happened yet and never will.

[@michaelmayhem350]

Smart enough to know that you should join nebula

[@BenVost]

Yes! I would watch you on there right away

[@CampingforCool41]

Im so exhausted of seeing “ai this” and “ai that” everywhere as a marketing gimmick. It’s a nightmare, especially for artists.

[@Hapsard]

That was a really great optimistic episode! I kinda needed something optimistic today. Thanks. 😊

[@martyschrader]

I am proud to be a part of the electronics and control systems design ecosphere coming up with all this cool stuff. Amazing what computers can figure out -- when they work.

[@guygillmore2970]

It is nearly 30 years old but the book Factor Four (Lovins, Lovins and Weizsacker) expands on this theme brilliantly and changed my life back in 1997

[@thethegreenmachine]

Amory's great. I saw a tour of his house on PBS a decade or 2 ago. We should've started building houses like that at least by then but still aren't.

[@josdesouza]

Yes, that book is a hallmark.

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@thethegreenmachine Modern building codes have adopted a lot of the principles of houses like Amory's, without going to such extremes. I'm in the middle of a project that will enhance the building envelope on my house that was built in 1960. Compared to modern homes, houses built when mine was are garbage when it comes to energy waste. I've improved it a lot and will do more, but modern buildings already have what I'm doing, and more.

[@LumenCache]

PassiveHouse is a big part of our passion for doing this. It's trivial for us to put Humidity and temperature sensors in the light switches because they are just inputs to command the lights, not actually switching the power. This makes them "UIs", more suited to doing beneficial User Interface stuff.

[@jazziejim]

What about all the energy use and damage to the climate by these big AI centers?

[@wt29]

Not sure about this, AI, like Bitcoin is energy price sensitive. You can't just go to your local supplier and say "I need a 50MW connection" let alone the upstream impacts. I think any new DCs are going to have to pay infrastructure as well as usage costs to implement.

[@cavemaneca]

Regarding triple-glazed windows: I'd love to have more efficient windows in my house, but I recently got it quoted and they said purchase and installation would be $34,500 for 10 windows.

[@Gordonz1]

Did you investigate insert windows that go over existing windows?

[@josdesouza]

Just like how Amory Lovins has been telling us for close to fifty years. Long before AI-driven tech, IoT and even renewables had become the talk of the town.

[@alan2102X]

NEGAWATTS!

[@Af1st1]

Smart enough to know I am not the smartest person on the planet!

[@OneSkyWarrior]

Lol. Agreed. The more you learn, the more questions come to mind. It's neverending! 😊

[@altosack]

It is particularly the smartest person in any setting who is profoundly aware they are not the smartest person in that setting.

[@d.Cog420]

I’ve been following this channel for many years and in the past comments would have been ‘isn’t this great’ or ‘thanks for showing us we have ways to deal with the problem.’ Now the comments are ‘this is silly greenwashing’ and it’s comforting to know people are looking more deeply. If you really want an ecological take on all things planet I can recommend Prof William Rees. Hope you don’t mind me posting that Dave and thanks again for another thought provoking vid. Anything to get us more engaged and talking is incredibly well received.

[@velokernow3696]

Humans seem to waste electricity. Smart meters, wifi, plugged in chargers, everything on standby, streetlights permanently on, lights left on in homes and offices when not needed, the list goes on.

[@Umski]

Worse when there’s little accountability in the public sector yet they then claim “poorness” and demand more public cash - turn off the effing lights that aren’t in use then - kids’ school is a prime example- so much waste going unnoticed yet always on the scrounge for more money - I’ve called them out a number of times - another example having heating going and then flinging all the doors and windows open - staff boiling full kettles of water for one cup - the list goes on 🤦‍♂️

[@guapochino140]

This will change in the quite near future. But it won't be AI that fixes it.

[@ianweniger6620]

Economics for human need over greed is a better path for climate. And human need means producing for use, not accumulation

[@Russell.Jolly.2023]

Explain to me where the economics for human need (over greed) was ever the norm and how things worked out. It has been capitalism, a greed based system (based on the wants/needs of consumers) that has increased lifespans, lifted many out of poverty, led to many innovations, and greatly improved the quality of life. And now, Western countries move towards this notion of net zero while other countries race toward higher consumption of fossil fuels in order to boost manufacturing. The reason they prefer fossil fuel is that it is cheaper and more reliable than the green alternative. So companies in Western countries, were regulation is much higher, move their manufacturing to those countries with exploding fossil fuel use. So, now we have a compounding effect in terms of pollution output. The result is that countries best positioned to restrict the pollution of manufacturers will find themselves de-industrialized in an increasingly polluted world.

[@BrentonSmythesfieldsaye]

I tipping Russ is a "god fearing" citizen of the good ol' US of A. 😆

[@jimsimpson2820]

Anything you save and don't spend is accumulation. Accumulation is a good thing

[@jimsimpson2820]

@@BrentonSmythesfieldsaye And are you 1 of those extinction rebellion assholes blocking intersections?

[@BrentonSmythesfieldsaye]

@@jimsimpson2820 Only that wasn't the context of the opening post.

[@ianweniger6620]

As long as the IoT is controlled by corporate greed, we need to stay offgrid as much as possible AND NO MORE.

[@paulc6766]

Yes the use of smart meters sounds OK but it fails to take into account that the electricity usage is directly related to the daily demands of society. WFH should help with this but that is being dismantled by inadequate company managers and politicians.

[@UCjNrKLyRJI-abFA8qiNo92Q]

if iot uses the cloud it generates more pollution that what it made during it's inception and constantly as long as it is been used, and several times more if it also uses AI

[@davidx.1504]

Agrowth > green growth > degrowth

[@compostjohn]

I wonder how much energy the AI servers use? A while back we were being told about the carbon footprint of digital currency like 'crypto' and 'blockchain' etc. Dose AI pose similar issues?

[@Jacob-yb6bv]

Yes, their energy use is enormous and growing. Any savings will be lost to the technology running these systems.

[@jayhennessy]

The effects of these technologies are incremental improvements in efficiency. We are nowhere near the magnitude of changes needed to mitigate climate change. It sounded like this piece would consider the effect on climate change, like what is the actual impact in society and avoided emissions of adopting these technologies? That would be really interesting so we can judge the relative importance of these technologies. The description asks whether we should let AI fix climate change. It would be quite a leap, from AI driven optimisation technologies working at the margins of the energy system, to fixing climate change. We can't optimise our way out of the climate breakdown, we need deep system change in society. It would be interesting if you contrasted these efficiency gains against the huge amounts of energy being used by AI right now. Technology is great, depending how it's used, but on its own it is not the panacea that many are peddling.

[@martincotterill823]

Going in the right direction, Dave, love it. Here in Germany, the media continues to put the Greens in a bad light, hoping for a return of the CDU/CSU and the return of ICE vehicles and oil and gas heating

[@jamesgrover2005]

This seems to be happening in many countries {enter conspiracy theory here}

[@incognitotorpedo42]

@@jamesgrover2005 Here in the States, oil-industry FUD is convincing a lot of people that electric cars are impractical, and a lot of people believe them.

[@firefox39693]

I really enjoyed this one. I completely agree with the need to prioritize energy efficiency. Ideas not mentioned here, like ground-source heat pumps, enegiespronge, using waste heat from data centres, EVs, public transit, and photovoltaic thermal (PVT), the list goes on, are all solutions that I think need to get more attention.

[@punditgi]

Thanks to Dave we can see the sunlit uplands of our energy future! 🎉😊

[@jayhennessy]

A household is not a building, it is a group of people living together, could be in an apartment. A multi-family building, often called an apartment building, can contain many households.

[@nallebrean]

Adapt your energy use to the cheapest time are not equal to energy efficiency. You can suddenly use more energy due to increasing losses but your bill are dropping. Don't mix that up. I e my tesla need more electricity to charge the same amount in cold weather if I let it cool down by waiting for the night to charge. But my bills might got lower. (In my case it's the same) The increased energy are used to heat the battery to charging temp. When it's cold it's eat around 1,5 KW just for heating.

[@jcgoedkoop]

Thank you Dave, for focusing on the positive side of the global scene concerning our survival as a species.

[@petewright4640]

Its really good all this is happening, such as demand side management of grid power, but whatever happened to just using less - turn down the thermostat and wear a woolly jumper etc.

[@danielfaben5838]

We had a president here in the states named Jimmy Carter. He was your man. Not so much for our system however. He was a one termer followed by Reagan. And so it goes.

[@davidjonsson469]

Thank you for teaching me the word “externality” 😊

[@MagisterHenrik]

Great video! And, a fantastic energetically coloured sweater.

[@karlInSanDiego]

I think you've pointed out how money is saved by effectively utilizing energy when it is cheapest (which often contradicts climate solutions). Here in San Diego, we can get an EV tariff to charge at night when demand is lowest, but that actually creates artificial nighttime demand which is keeping fossils online and seemingly important at those hours. You baited us with the AI title, and then ignored the INSANE waste of power wasted for AI to redundantly tack on additional responses to a Google search at the top for example. AI is largely a misused term. Energy audits and realtime feedback loops for demand management is important, but it doesn't require AI in the slightest.

[@Kevin_Street]

Thanks for the new video! I remember learning about these "smart" systems and how they could revolutionize energy production over twenty years ago, back at the turn of the century. I guess the difference is that companies are just now building the control systems and sensors necessary to implement the systems, so they're not just theoretical. Also the spread of cloud computing has made it cheaper to offload computational tasks, so every building doesn't have to have it's own computers.

[@brucea9871]

I recently watched a KZbin video stating the increasing use of AI will result in a much greater demand for energy (because AI is very computationally intensive) and hence may result in more pollution (until we eliminate fossil fuels). Initially I thought that was the subject of this video. So while AI may contribute to climate change your video demonstrated it can help slow it.

[@mikhailbandurist8652]

Just have a Think and Undecided with Matt Ferell are two channels that help me stay motivated and active for technologies. Thank you guys!

[@BillyBobSunshine]

The irony that one of the most energy intensive modern technologies is helping save energy..

[@kikeb1534]

Year ago, i make a IoT on my water heater tank. I control the heat, according energy price at that hour, power demand on the rest of the house and water temperature. Later I install PV energy and I integrate on the system. The use of that systems have many effiency appications.

[@cliffp73]

Hey guys don’t forget the government can tell them to set your setting to what they deem ok if you decide to put any of these “cloud” internet accessible devices in your home or business!!!

[@grumpy2.0]

It's already being programmed in on EV chargers.

[@markgarcia5845]

Hi Dave. Great video. I'd love to see one on the potential for passive-solar to help reduce energy demand in residential and commercial buildings. I never see it discussed and it seems like we're missing an opportunity. Where's the resistance? Is it that the up-front costs are slightly higher? Anyway, I'd love to see a review of this.

[@ajayvee6677]

We made our 1903 timber-clad house more energy efficient and comfortable with passive solar principles. We enclosed small courtyard, turning it into a ‘garden room’ with one glass wall and a polycarbonate roof. We enclosed an east facing verandah with pull-down, clear plastic blinds. These two changes greatly reduced drafts and retained solar heat. Then we placed insulation everywhere we could in ceilings and walls, installed solar panels, a solar water heater (evacuated tube style) and two heat pumps. We get a feed-in tariff credit for summer and autumn, saving us several hundred (Australian) dollars each year.

[@zildjiandrummer1]

I've been doing AI research in the climate and remote sensing space for almost 10 years. I just want to say AI is being (and has been) used to tackle every single topic in climate change and related environmental issues.

[@macrosense]

People need to spend more time watching screens, and drinking bottled energy drinks, sports drinks, soft drinks, vitamin drinks, and alcoholic drinks. That is how you know the ecomy is growing.

[@jasonneugebauer5310]

The Estimated U S. Energy Consumption chart is very good at showing the quantities, uses, and energy loss of our energy resources. I like this chart a lot, provided it is accurate.

[@AM-uw3gp]

Woah that’s a bright shirt Dave, and yeah I’m not quite ready to let AI into my house just yet, I’ll observe all the downsides before I consider giving new technology free reign over my life, cheers

[@grumpy2.0]

Wow theyve reinvented BMS, systems just removing the maintenance guy who would tweak as needed.

[@wayne8113]

Thanks Dave

[@neiljessop3510]

Living in Perth in Western Australia where we are lucky to have an abundance of Solar roof top electric generation. We are unlucky to have a grid dominated by a State Government that is beholden to the Gas Industry. To see Octopus Energy being innovative and not once mentioning Fossil Fuel Electric Generation is a fresh breath of air. We in West Australia are still pushing for Gas being the new clean alternative to dirty coal. It's about time the wake up call arrived here too.

[@johnransom1146]

Polluters should start paying to fund these ideas. No country should allow themselves to be a haven for this truly unsociable behaviour

[@skierpage]

Vote for a stiff and increasing carbon tax, with half the proceeds rebated to poor people and the other half invested in energy efficiency. Most economists agree this is the most efficient and effective way to reduce emissions.

[@cpmathews2566]

Daniel Schmachtenberger... The Meta Crisis.. Also, Nate Hagens, The Great simplification. We have passed six of the nine catastrophic tipping points.

[@AcropolisNeven]

Solve problems caused by technology with more technology. Insane indeed.

[@jimthain8777]

Not nearly as insane as solving money problems with more money, which is a fundamental foundation of economics.

[@AcropolisNeven]

Agreed. And you know what's even more insane? Allowing personal wealth to grow and concentrate without any limit whatsoever.

[@LiamRedmill]

Forgot to mention your own fantastic coverage of air conditioning efficiency improvement's.the DC solar lighting system has come at a very late stage ,when it was obvious for years and years but blocked

[@jdcjr50]

At this point, if it builds consensus, do it.

[@তুহিন_জানা]

The main problem with these is the tiered subscription model. That is assuming the ai being used for it does not use too much water & energy.

[@trixy1823]

Thanks for the positivity!👏🏽👏🏼👏🏾👏🏻

[@djayjp]

Highly skeptical that it makes sense to completely disable a hot water tank during large periods of the day... 🤔

[@gasdive]

We've done that in Australia for nearly a century and it works fine. For the last 50 years it's been controlled by the network "controlled load" and it works perfectly and it's completely transparent to the consumer. Hot water comes out of the tap when you want it and nothing else is required to manage it.

[@gasdive]

PS, there's no need for any IOT gubbins to make this work. Just a relay in the meter box. It's a complete con to make out that any computers are needed.

[@tobiasberr1]

Any efficiency gains we ever came up with in any aspect during history, were always completely compensated by increased consumption. Rebound effect!!!!

[@ChinchillaBONK]

Unless building management are required by law to install such devices inside their buildings, this will never happen to buildings already built. Only newly built buildings will likely incorporate these tech from the beginning. Current buildings will need a push for their owners/management to also follow suit.

[@johnc6030]

Hopefully energy performance certificates will help with this

[@TTTzzzz]

If and when we hit net zero emissions it will already be too late. "3.5C is already baked in." Your words, not mine.

[@polanve]

Where I used to work there were separate systems for heat and AC. My boss would routinely have both on, and have the windows open. There is no optimum temperature control, people are too stupid to know if they are hot or cold. I vote to let AI handle it all, and don't let people touch the controls or open windows.

[@skierpage]

That's the case in many modern buildings. In the older building where I worked the lights and HVAC would shut off at 7pm, then the cleaners would come in at 9pm, turn them on again... and then they would run all night.

[@Skobeloff...]

The elephant in the room is human population growth.

[@jimthain8777]

These things you're talking about are in their infancy. That means that the real effect of them is probably underestimated. I expect this will have a much larger, although possibly hardly noticeable effect than currently believed. Thanks for the positive news, it's something everyone needs to hear with so much doom and gloom around.

[@SeanWork]

People in the U.S.A. have no concept of energy efficiency. They know how to complain about high energy and fuel prices though lol.

[@scottharding4336]

I thought this video was about AI being used to construct a new, sustainable economic system. Instead it's just a thermostat that uses 5000 times more energy than a normal thermostat.

[@grafity1749]

Thanks for the good video ❤😊

[@rolandgo6744]

The Jevons Paradox states that, in the long term, an increase in efficiency in resource use will generate an increase in resource consumption rather than a decrease. Hopeless

[@JP-zp5ic]

Economic growth is definitely a good thing, at least when it is decreasing the amount of poverty and producing a strong middle class. Moreover, we have a huge amount of room for growth, so long as we use energy and materials in a way that is sustainable. For instance, we could drastically expand the amount of renewable energy produced while curtailing fossil fuel use, with a net result of economic growth and reduced environmental footprint. You can have both.

[@mintakan003]

At the consumer level, "AI" (the old fashion kind, called "machine learning"), can help with efficiency. This is what is necessary to sustain a population. But the trends, towards increasing massive energy demand, in the US, is disturbing. This is in the face of having largely staying flat for a number of years, due to efficiencies. This is until recently. "AI" in the form of LLM's, and scaling them up, requires huge amounts of energy. In the US, they can't build data centers fast enough. And the Tech companies are even sympathetic to renewable energy + storage, and want to meet the climate targets. Delays in land allocation, permitting, permitting, transmission, ...make it quite difficult. They even consider using nuclear power plants to power ChatGPT. (Just kidding. It's not quite that. But neither too far from the truth.) Even if one is willing to pay the price for nuclear, these take a long time to build. So they're left with natural gas plants (which is cheap in the US). Esp. the kind of plants that can deliver reliably 24/7, which are needed for data centers. There's also the resurgence of manufacturing in the US, ironically from IRA. This also adds to the energy demand.

[@stevepowell5669]

Sounds like you had a few too many coffees today!

[@dawnalbright]

I'm booking my trans-Atlantic flight to London right now, and a rental car to take me to Farnborough.

[@andyking6051]

2 insane things together a climate MYTH and insane AI ? Nuff said .

[@jburt56]

Yep, virtual power, v2g, adaptive load shifting obviating the use of batteries (for example water desalination and storing water instead of power), etc. Throw in machine learning to accelerate discovery of further optimizations.

[@danshillabeer9523]

@@jburt56 thinking in systems 👍

[@ulrichschonhardt6796]

Techno-optimistic Hopium. There's not enough materials and minerals to electrify everything. The Mordor economy is upon us.

[@RockHoward]

I'm excited by the potential of Ideal Power's B-Tran semiconductors to reduce electricity loss in inverters, batteries and all manner of smart switches. Notably EV range and overall grid efficiency could improve radically by leveraging this tech.

[@OutdoorLonghair]

When are we going to start solar heating our water?

[@jamesgrover2005]

I started about 5 years ago :) It's long been common to see solar boiler panels on Spanish rooftops

[@klokangeorge4005]

​@@jamesgrover2005draught & no drink water, thé 1sts probléms, after massive DeHEATing of sources

[@A.Hjelmeland]

I started 13 years ago. Its not common here in Norway 😅

[@steeveeleevee6484]

I read only this morning that over 93% of Cyprus homes heat their water by solar only.

[@skierpage]

Solar thermal heating is wonky and prone to breakage. I have the scars to prove it. It is better to put up more solar photovoltaic panels to make your own generally useful electricity, and use some of that to power a heat pump for domestic hot water.

[@BrickGriff]

Do the energy and water savings outweigh the costs of running these analysis engines?

[@pingnick]

One bizarre POV is that Direct Air Capture will need so much energy that we’ll be blessed if AI training systems etc raise civilization’s energy use such that we can spare a bit remove CO2 too🤯

[@pingnick]

Cool Worlds channel has episode of how this might just might be “reasonably crazy” POV from physics POV however narrowly

[@snack881]

So we are allowed to insulate things but only once we've built an absurdly expensive and energy hungry AI to tell us to do it

[@DiThi]

99% of this "AI" use can be replaced by very simple algorithms, because nearly all of the actionable things are really simple. This makes "AI" have a net negative impact because of how power hungry it is.

[@arnaldorentes5371]

Hello, Dave and channel colleagues. As always, you brought us vibrant and essential news in this video. I would just like to leave a testimony, a little long, perhaps. In the 80s I was studying Architecture and Urban Planning and had been focusing on the environment for years. Computerization was arriving strongly, with incredible promises. Soon, all non-manual, but boring work would be done by computers. Working fewer hours a day, people would have more and more free time. Soon emerged theorists and specialists in creative leisure, some presenting beautiful projects of public equipment for this, etc. Capitalism thought differently. In short, the people left behind by the gains from computerization were fired. Those who kept their jobs started working more, a trend that continues today, a success story!... AI will, for sure, transform our lives. It will bring many advantages and gains, in energy optimization and else. I'm just not that sure about who will actually benefit. Forgive my pessimism and the long text. Hugs from Brazil!

[@graemetunbridge1738]

... and optimize what the humans are doing. It must be pretty easy to optimize out most commuting (esp car commuting), and most electricity use (move information not people). etc etc.

[@id0069]

The idea that allowing the monitoring and control of home energy consumption by some private corporate database server (euphemistically known as the cloud) is somehow going to save money for the consumer is misguided. Corporations exist to make money for themselves, not help consumers save money. If it reduces energy consumption, that's fine, but we shouldn't pretend it's something that it isn't. Keep in mind that whatever is controlled by corporations or the government can be turned off by them for any reason, like saying the wrong thing, having the wrong political opinion etc. There really is no reason for remote control of everything. Nobody is trying to do away the "old-fashioned" centralized control systems. The World Economic Forum wants to upgrade them to get control of every aspect of human life. That's what cloud services are all about - centralization.

[@blue_beephang-glider5417]

Live load and Dead load, doing engineering we learnt about this. A car 1200kg carries one person 80kg. 85% of the fuel you burn just moves the dead metal around. An average electric bicycle weighs 25kg only 30% of your charge is wasted on the metal. Bikes are in the weather and can't do traffic speeds or trips so, what can we do? I think the drive should be for two person cars that can travel highway speeds and can park in half a standard parking spot. 85% of our trips are alone, groceries can be put in the passenger space, on family trips both cars go with a child in each (for the majority of modern families). Stop carrying the metal around.

[@Baile_an_Locha]

How much energy did my tablet screen waste by having to display your outrageously bright orange top? Matt black ftw! :)

[@alan2102X]

Amory Lovins has been talking about this for 50 years. "NEGAWATTS" = watts not used

[@ezekielquiano3359]

In colder countries, incandescent lamp should still be used to help in heating the room.

[@RogueSecret]

Artificial Intelligence use crazy much energy.

[@noizydan]

Thanks for your work Dave. Always interested to see what youve stumbled across this week. Your piece on the fully charged show, and my experience of their channel suggests they are very gadget-focused. I suspect gadgets, while part of our likely response, are not going to be able to fix our overshoot predicament. They could even be part of the problem if we get too carried away and forget the externalities. It would be great to see you jump out of your tech comfort zone a bit more to explore other solutions that don't involve new tech. Intelligence-led solutions can be great but without wisdom can lead to disaster.

[@fleachamberlain1905]

Great video, thanks. Just on note, external costs or benefits, aka externalities, are any costs or benefits that occur because of, but outside of, the trans/action. They are typically experienced by others who had nothing to do with the trans/action and can still, or ultimately, be financial.

[@BaronWilleford]

Economists are not "dismissive" about externalities. A lot of work has been done to come up with clever ways to internalize those externalities. It's politicians who are dismissive about them.

[@skierpage]

Most economists agree that a stiff, rising carbon tax on fossil fuels encourages the most effective reductions. But bribes and the threat of angry confused mobs keeps it off the table.

[@pcampbell3068]

I don’t know maybe let the consumer and citizen decide what we pay for.

[@speters17]

​@@pcampbell3068By that metric you're also deciding what not to pay for (or more accurately, what companies can get away with shifting the cost of onto you). The average beefburger in the US would be about $48 if the externalities of air, water and soil pollution, greenhouse gases, antibiotic resistance, land use change etc were factored in. Are you happy for the company to dump that cost on the public rather than be forced to minimise the externalities (and therefore both damage and ultimate cost to the public) to produce better burgers?

[@SeanAltamurasalt]

Hello Dave. I visited Farborough Air Show this summer. Seeing how the one in October is focused on electricity, I am wondering if the is any drone related content. Thx for your excellent work. Sean, from Naples