Death by Data

Data centers and crypto mines are gobbling up electricity faster than the world can produce it. But produce it we will. Having a shortage of electricity is anathema to the project of modernity, the idea of progress. Of course the bright green will want all this extra juice to be produced by "clean renewables", so be prepared for the impacts of all that mining and siting and manufacturing of wind towers and solar panels. For what exactly? Why is so much juice being pored into super-computers? To propel the latest greatest source of accumulated profit, artificial intelligence. The stock market values chip maker Nvidia at 2.2 trillion dollars. All the biggies, Microsoft, Google, Musk, etc. are raking in massive profits off this new "industry". So we will expand the grid, build out gas fired power plants and small nuclear and whatever it takes to feed it. Mining crypto speaks for itself. The point is, when greens say we can produce %100 of our electricity with renewables they have no idea what that number might be in ten years, as demand grows and grows and grows. Once again we come up against the concept of "limits" to growth, a concept Capital and its proponents can not and will not grasp.