The Dangerous Economist: Life is full of tradeoffs: if we want more "big data" and artificial intelligence then we might have less green energy

See How Big Data Centers Are Slowing the Shift to Clean Energy: In Virginia’s data-center alley, rising power demand means more fossil fuels by Jennifer Hiller and Scott Patterson of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"An explosion of so-called hyperscale data centers in places such as Northern Virginia has upended plans by electric utilities to cut the use of fossil fuels. In some areas, that means burning coal for longer than planned.
These giant data centers will provide computing power needed for artificial intelligence. They are setting off a four-way battle among electric utilities trying to keep the lights on, tech companies that like to tout their climate credentials, consumers angry at rising electricity prices and regulators overseeing investments in the grid and trying to turn it green.
Ground zero for the fight is Northern Virginia’s “Data Center Alley.” About 70% of global internet traffic passes through the area’s data centers. A spider web of power lines connecting data centers to the grid crisscross neighborhoods and parks. More are coming."
"Data centers tend to cluster together in places that have established networks and access to a plentiful energy supply. The rise of ChatGPT and similar large-language AI models, which require huge amounts of computing power, turbocharged data-center demand.
Many new data centers coming to Northern Virginia are known as hyperscale, or facilities that are far larger than previous generations of data centers. The big ones use as much power as the city of Seattle. Dominion Energy D 0.06%increase; green up pointing triangle, which supplies electricity to most of the data centers in Virginia, expects their power use to quadruple over the next 15 years, representing 40% of the utility’s demand in the state.
Utilities in Georgia and North Carolina are adding fossil-fuel power or considering delaying the shutdown of coal-fired plants to meet the demands of data centers and other industries. Duke Energy DUK 0.12%increase; green up pointing triangle told regulators it needs three new gas-fired power plants in the Carolinas. Otherwise it says it will have to keep coal plants open."
"residents complain about the constant buzzing that emanates from the hulking structures and the power lines that crisscross their neighborhoods."
"Wind and solar can’t serve data-center demand around the clock, so growth will need to be supplemented by natural-gas-fired power generation, said Arshad Mansoor, chief executive of the nonprofit Electric Power Research Institute.
“You can be an idealist,” Mansoor said. “But if you’re a realist, you’ll add a ton of solar and you can balance that with gas.” The only other option to new gas plants is delaying coal and nuclear-plant retirements, he said."