Technology

Tech has helped us in many ways, like with the device you’re reading from, but only "17% of the world’s e-waste

But what about the pollution made during manufacturing?

Consider the history of Silicon Valley in California:

- “Microchip manufacturers contaminated the groundwater in the 1980s.

Almost 40 years later, the cleanup isn’t complete.”

- “To clean silicon wafers … manufacturers used harsh chemical solvents.”

“Over the course of two years, more than 60,000 gallons of toxic chemicals leaked.”

- One solvent used was trichloroethylene (TCE), which causes/caused/can-cause cancer, birth defects, and still-births.

- “Tech firms often covered up or minimized their pollution problems."

Today “modern chip fabs still require huge amounts of water and ‘forever chemicals’ (PFAS) that resist breakdown.”

Will artificial intelligence help? It doesn’t look good - given the amount of pollution created by its data centres.

“Physical data centers ... consume massive amounts of energy.”
“The data centers that power a-i consume immense amounts of water to cool hot servers.”

“‘Their emissions are ... going through the roof, due to new data centers and a-i’.”

If ever-thirsty data centers are built in agricultural areas - where farm fertilizers already pollute local water -
it could decrease the clean drinking water supply!

“Pollution derived from ... data centers has been linked to … cancers, asthma, and other” illnesses.

That’s not good. Not good to date, but what about in the future?

Pollution is causing “tech companies … [to] face a strategy crisis exacerbated by growth plans for a-i.”

“Oil corporations are planning to build gas plants that specifically serve data centers.”

If “power utilities are facing skyrocketing increases in demand” why not build more electrical power stations?

“Regulations ... and permitting processes,

and frequent legal fights brought by environmental and community groups,

So why not use increased electricity "demand" to build more renewable electricity?

There are no up-front costs when continuing with a dirty old power plant -

compared to the significant costs of building something new.

“All new power-generating facilities ... are far more costly than the [fully depreciated] units they replace.”

Our electricity grid is antiquated, partly because of fractured or overlapping utility zones/jurisdictions,

and to reform all the mess is a headache that no one is in charge of.

It gets worse.

Due to quicker, more comprehensive, data retrieval mega-polluting companies are making big plans.

“Enabled emissions are … gases released when A-i ... and cloud computing [enable] more fossil fuel production."

Companies can moderate "high-risk operations — fracking, offshore projects, deep reserves,”

thereby "driving faster exploration" and greater output.

Tech companies are in a race to figure out (potentially) super-lucrative advanced a-i before their competitors do,

and are “asserting [an] old corporate prerogative: the unlimited right of a corporation to pollute without interference.”