AI is great for renewable energy – but it’s even better for fossil fuels, studies suggest

AI is helping fossil fuel firms to extract more oil and gas, and they’re outpacing renewables – meaning the technology could prove dangerous for the climate even without considering the environmental cost of data centres.

That’s according to a paper that highlighted assumptions about AI benefits.

Two years ago, Bill Gates – you may recall him from Microsoft – suggested AI would be effectively carbon neutral. While data centres were already chewing through quite a bit of power, he believed the efficiencies gained in technology, grids and so on would make up the difference.

At the time, he said: “Let’s not go overboard on this. Data centres are, in the most extreme case, a 6% addition [in energy demand] but probably only 2% to 2.5%. The question is, will AI accelerate a more than 6% reduction? And the answer is: certainly.” He added that tech companies would pay extra to use green energy.

To an extent that’s correct. But the assumption that those efficiencies would only benefit renewables was wrong.

What’s good for renewables is better for fossil fuels

While renewables are benefiting from AI, a study published in Nature notes that AI has also brought productivity gains to fossil fuels. Which has led to more drilling for oil and gas extraction.

This is beyond the extra power being demanded by AI data centres, which are increasingly powered by extending the lives of coal plants. Many also use extra power delivered via natural gas. But the study didn’t account for that.

Instead, this is about giving tools to fossil fuel companies to help them squeeze more out of their projects, with the Guardian citing the International Energy Agency as estimating that AI could boost recoverable reserves in oil and gas by 5% – great news for shareholders of fossil-fuel companies, less so for the rest of us sweating it out amid a climate crisis.

AI is not carbon neutral

The study found that if fossil fuel and other dirty sources of energy adopted AI at the same rate as renewable sources, the gains for the latter would have to be four times as big to neutralise the former. Not a surprise when 80% of global primary energy is still fossil based, as the report noted.

Comparing productivity gains in the fossil fuel industry and in renewables, the study said that under “parallel adoption”, modelling showed that net annual carbon dioxide emissions would increase by 0.47 to 1.8 gigatonnes. That’s up to 4.8% of energy-related emissions.

“Fossil fuel applications are already happening at scale today – real contracts, real deployment, with evidence from industry operators and financial analysts,” study co-author Holly Alpine said, according to the Guardian. “Renewables applications are still largely at the pilot or academic-study stage – more speculative, more dependent on deployment barriers like permitting and interconnection getting resolved.”

The research not only warns that better AI governance is needed, but highlights how easy it is to fall into the trap of assuming positive benefits from a new technology. Big Tech CEOs – or former CEOs – will only talk about the upsides, but it’s safe to assume there will be downsides, too.

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