AI impact to companies sustainability mission?

By Keith Thuerk | New to Crypto's? | 22 Sep 2025

It should come to no surprise to everyone that AI and AI Data Centers consume massive amounts of energy. That energy is used to run the hardware, compute the small and large language models (LLM) as well as cool all these specialized hardware. I came across a fact last week that spurred this discussion. "AI LLM facts - for AI to perform a single run thru one LLM it consumes enough power which is equivalent to 100,000 average US homes in one year." Knowing AI requires several runs to perfect and clean up all AI models, this just seemed to fly in the face of all the Net Zero declarations that have been jammed down our throats for the past 10-12 years.

Over the past decade we all have heard and seen corporations small and large declare how they are moving towards Net Zero initiatives. Which got me wondering how will the AI push and Net Zero sustainability collide and what will be the impact? Knowing the US Congress has been feckless since the 1960's and the includes full neglect to our three (3) major power grids in the USA. If you didn't know we have three grids (East, West & Texas) and having lived in Texas during the period where the governing body ERCOT moth balled all excess capacity with a rising population growth...seems the Public Utility Commission (PUC) was asleep at the wheel too.

All this to say, where will all these AI driven data centers get their power? As Solar, Wind have not significantly improved the US Power Grid status. The current East grid is at or near production and delivery production so it can't onboard any new AI requests. The West and Texas grids already clamor they don't have enough capacity and perform rolling blackouts as needed, so much of the same. Google is building their own generators for new facilities in the mid-west. Who else is following suit?

The cure for high prices is higher prices! So, while you have been switching out your incandescent light bulbs for LED's your bills still went up. Question this statement? Go look at your budget and pull up data from the past 1-5 years. Am I right, or am I right? So, you have been asked to sacrifice for the enormous power requirements that is the AI future. That's one fancy trick if you ask me! Good luck locating those net zero statements on corporate websites too.

Just to add fuel to the fire, if you add up all the Green energy savings and the impact to the environment over the past 5-6-years know that a single massive volcanic eruption in Tonga wiped all that out in 3-minutes. Check out the NASA report.