Why does nighttime AI use burn dirtier energy?
Fossil fuel dominance: Coal and gas supply up to 90% of overnight electricity.
Solar drop-off: Solar disappears after sunset, while wind delivers only ~30% capacity at night.
Peak carbon hours: Between 2–4 AM, grid intensity rises to 450–650 gCO₂/kWh, compared to 200–300 gCO₂/kWh in the afternoon.
This is complete bullshit in the UK, where energy is greenest in the small hours of the night when demand is low and the wind turbines are still turning. Least green and most expensive is late afternoon and evening, when energy usage spikes.
Let me reiterate. AI is crap. AI is a massive waste of energy, but your website has its calculations off in terms of order of magnitude when it comes to comparing the airline industry pushing tons of metal fast and hard into and through the sky with AI pushing a bunch of electrons through a bunch of transistors. Seriously, way off.
I checked. The IEA says airlines generate about a gigaton of CO2, and it’s still growing since the dip of covid, which is perhaps where your infographic authors got their screwy figures, which are, like I suggested, the wrong order of magnitude.
Friend, did you actually follow the link? Maybe just read the pictures?
That says national not global
both those numbers are insignificant.
Just because something has a pretty infographic doesn’t make it true.
Picked at random, It also claims this:
This is complete bullshit in the UK, where energy is greenest in the small hours of the night when demand is low and the wind turbines are still turning. Least green and most expensive is late afternoon and evening, when energy usage spikes.
Let me reiterate. AI is crap. AI is a massive waste of energy, but your website has its calculations off in terms of order of magnitude when it comes to comparing the airline industry pushing tons of metal fast and hard into and through the sky with AI pushing a bunch of electrons through a bunch of transistors. Seriously, way off.
I checked. The IEA says airlines generate about a gigaton of CO2, and it’s still growing since the dip of covid, which is perhaps where your infographic authors got their screwy figures, which are, like I suggested, the wrong order of magnitude.
Cite your source and compare also using your source?
https://lmgtfy2.com/query/?q=IEA
Like I said, the IEA. The International Energy Agency. I wonder if you’ve heard of them.
You can throw scepticism as much as you like, dude, but
(1) I did not lie and
(2) your website is unreliable. Give it up.
Again. LLMs are crap, they spout falsehoods all the time, they use unreasonably large amounts of data, but the airline industry pollutes a LOT more.
I begin to wonder whether your website was itself written by an LLM.