Europe: AI Development or Net Zero?

This year, European nations announced plans to pursue artificial intelligence. National leaders announced AI spending goals totaling hundreds of billions of euros in efforts to catch up to the United States. But AI requires huge amounts of electrical power, conflicting with Europe’s commitment to achieve a Net Zero power grid.

Since ChatGPT released their AI chatbot in November of 2022, artificial intelligence has exploded. In only two years, the AI revolution became the driving force in the US high-tech industry. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and other firms will spend over $100 billion this year building and upgrading data centers to run AI. Nvidia, the dominant supplier of AI graphics processor units (GPUs), became the most valuable company in the world, its market capitalization soaring from $300 billion to $4.3 trillion in less than three years.

Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of electricity. AI processors run 24 hours a day, enabling computers to think like humans. When servers are upgraded to support AI, they consume 6 to 10 times more power than when used for cloud storage and the internet. Data centers consumed 4% of US power at the start of 2024 but are projected to consume 20% within the next decade.

The need for new generating capacity for AI now drives US electricity markets. Coal-fired power plant closures have been postponed in Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, and other states. Nuclear plants are restarting in Iowa, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Dozens of small modular reactors are on the drawing board. More than 200 gas-fired plants are in planning or under construction, including more than 100 in Texas. Companies building AI data centers are constructing their own on-site power plants, unwilling to wait for grid power. The pursuit of artificial intelligence is rapidly replacing obsolete US Net Zero policies.

For more than 25 years, Europe enacted policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in order to try to “mitigate” dangerous human-caused climate change. The European Green Deal of 2019 seeks to make Europe the first “climate-neutral continent.” The European Climate Law of 2021 provides legal force for the European Green Deal, calling for a 55% reduction in GHG emissions by 2030 and for achieving Net Zero emissions by 2050. Nations have been installing wind and solar facilities and closing traditional power plants to reduce emissions. Today, about one-third of Europe’s electricity comes from renewables.

It’s not clear that Europe’s emission-reduction efforts will have a measurable effect on global temperatures, but it is clear that the policies have reduced energy availability and raised costs. In 2000, Europe produced 56 percent of its natural gas and 44 percent of its petroleum. But the region chose to invest in wind and solar, instead of using hydraulic fracturing to boost oil and gas production. By 2021, Europe was producing only 37 percent of its own gas and 25 percent of its petroleum, with rising imports boosting energy prices.

Denmark and Germany have the highest density of wind turbines in the world but suffer residential electricity prices that are three times as high as US prices. Higher energy prices continue to force fertilizer, metals, automotive, and other industrial companies to build plants overseas, rather than in Europe. Per-person electricity consumption has been falling in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom for the last two decades. Nevertheless, Europe wants to pursue artificial intelligence while continuing to try to achieve Net Zero energy goals.

In February, French President Emmanual Macron announced €109 billion to boost artificial intelligence in France, arguing that his plan was as ambitious as US President Donald Trump’s “Stargate” plan. Macron pointed out that France was the largest electricity exporter in Western Europe because of the nation’s fleet of nuclear plants. But it’s possible that President Macron doesn’t understand the size of the power needed by new data centers. The new Meta data center in northern Louisiana, when completed in 2030, will use as much power as two-thirds of the city of Paris, and future expansions of the site will exceed Paris consumption.

Just last month, Marine Le Pen of the conservative opposition party announced that she would install air conditioning units across France if elected. About three-quarters of French buildings do not have air conditioning, including many schools and hospitals. The per-person electricity consumption in France is down 16 percent since 2005.

Germany exported power two decades ago. But Chancellor Angela Merkel closed more than 30 nuclear plants, making Germany an electricity importer today. Nevertheless, current Chancellor Friedrich Merz plans to provide subsidies for construction of data centers with 100,000 GPUs from Nvidia. Per-person power consumption in Germany is down 19% since 2005.

In June, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer stated that artificial intelligence can create a “better future,” announcing state funding for AI. But the UK is on the road to becoming a zero-electricity society. According to data from the International Energy Agency, the average person in the UK consumes 33% less electricity than they did twenty years ago. Unless the UK abandons Net Zero, the nation won’t have enough power for AI.

In Ireland, data centers are projected to consume 30% of the nation’s power by 2030. But due to a shortage of power, Ireland recently imposed a moratorium on new data center builds.

As part of the Net Zero transition, European nations intend to use green hydrogen as fuel for industry. But green hydrogen is produced from electrolysis of water, using large amounts of electricity from wind and solar. Producing a single kilogram of green hydrogen from electrolysis requires 50-55 kilowatt-hours of electricity, about 20 times as much as used daily in a UK home. Millions of kilograms of hydrogen would be required. There won’t be enough electricity to produce large amounts of green hydrogen.

Unless Europe abandons Net Zero and efforts to convert their power grid to wind and solar, AI will be a failure. Wind and solar are intermittent and AI data centers require 24-hour, 7-day per week electricity. Renewables are low-density systems, requiring vast areas of land for deployment and two to three times as much transmission infrastructure as traditional coal, gas, or nuclear plants. Wind and solar projects wait years for transmission connection compared to gas-fired plants that can be built quickly next to the data center site.

If Europe wants to compete in artificial intelligence, Net Zero policies must be abandoned.

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Steve Goreham is a speaker on energy, the environment, and public policy, as well as author of Green Breakdown: The Coming Renewable Energy Failure. His previous posts and mentions at MasterResource can be found here.

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