President Donald Trump signed an executive decree on Tuesday which aims to relaunch the American coal industry – partly to the gunshot of the AI request.
The executive decree “pushes the use of coal to feed the new data of artificial intelligence (AI)”, according to an announcement from the White House.
The measures would see certain coal -fired power plants, which were to be withdrawn, would continue to produce electricity – including to supply AI data centers with high energy intensity in the United States.
Tuesday by a group of minors in the White House, Trump announced a plan that he declared “unnecessary regulations that were targeting a beautiful clean coal”.
The executive order would describe the coal a “critical mineral”, according to the version of the White House. The administration also aims to “promote exports of coal and coal technologies, to facilitate international leaves for American coal and to accelerate the development of coal technology”.
Feed the AI boom
An increasing number of authoritarian data centers, which are crucial for the management of AI services, have contributed to the increase in demand for electricity in the United States in recent years.
The startup of Elon Musk, XAI, for example, plans to build a supercomputer in Memphis and asked for a permit to build a new electrical substation next door.
The International Energy Agency estimates that data centers consume 2% to 3% of global energy – a figure that should develop in tandem with AI mass adoption.
Coal has been considered a stable source of energy because it is quite abundant, and its supporters say that it can respond to the increase in electricity requests for data centers.
While the United States seeks to strengthen its AI ecosystem and encourage juggernauts to develop its technologies on home at home, the administration praising coal as a way of feeding the BOOM of AI.
Trump has repeatedly made comparisons with China – which has doubled on its production of coal -fired power plants, as well as its renewable energy industry – and the economic benefits it has acquired in the IA breed as a result of this.
The great giants of technology such as Google, Meta and Amazon, which rush to develop more and more advanced AI models, had previously committed to using renewable energy sources with a low carbon content to build their data centers. However, a large part of the electricity necessary for this has so far been generated by fossil fuels.
It may not be a smooth navigation to revive the coal industry. Critics say that natural gas, wind and solar energy are cheaper alternatives to coal – and less polluting and harmful to the environment. The US Energy Information Administration estimated in February that 93% of the new electricity generation capacity which should be added to the American network this year should come from solar, wind and batteries – which could make coal less competitive.
“The coal -fired power plants are old and dirty, non -competitive and unreliable,” Kit Kennedy, Director General of the Power at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement on Tuesday. “The Trump administration is stuck in the past, trying to pay more about yesterday’s energy.
businessinsider
