To the editor: As your editorial notes, the dramatic increase in electricity demand from California's growing number of data centers could cripple our transition to clean energy.
Data centers power everything from cloud computing to images and text created by artificial intelligence (AI). Putting aside the debate over how essential some AI functions are, it’s clear that we must avoid reversing our clean energy transition by powering these facilities with dirty fossil fuels that pollute our air and destabilize our climate.
State lawmakers should oppose Senate Bill 1298, which would allow anachronistic fossil fuel-burning power plants to serve as backup generators for data centers. We have better, forward-thinking alternatives: better energy efficiency measures, more rooftop solar panels, and batteries to store additional energy available for use 24/7.
There is no point in fueling the AI revolution of the future with dirty, outdated energy sources.
Steven King, Los Angeles
The author is a clean energy advocate for Environment California.
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To the editor: I used to think that corporations like Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP simply needed to be paid to save the planet – a shockingly naive sentiment.
Their greed knows no bounds. There is not enough market share to quench the thirst of a paying monopoly like the oil industry.
AI is just the latest innovation in the market that is strengthening its presence in the most profitable and powerful sector on the planet: energy. A monopoly on a monopoly.
Have the markets already factored in the inevitable crash or are we back in a 2008-like situation? Is that why Warren Buffett is sitting on so much cash right now?
You can ask ChatGPT, but it's like eating your own tail.
Pam Brennan, Newport Beach
