How Can We Ensure Fossil Fuels Aren’t Proliferating to Store Our Cat Videos?

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There is a growing concern about the energy use in data centers. Data centers are effectively that — a central location where our data is stored, and bounced in and out to stream whatever it is the end user thousands of miles away is requesting on the internet, whether it’s a CleanTechnica article, CleanTechnica YouTube video, CleanTech Talk podcast … or … something else? Why, I don’t know, but people do consume other media besides ours. Shrug … some people are weird.

All kidding aside, though, it’s a massive issue. Combined with cryptocurrency mining operations, data centers draw a ridiculous amount of energy. Just to give an example, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), these “large flexible load” use points will draw 54 billion (with a b) kWh in 2025, up almost 60% from 2024. Texas is just a microcosm of what’s going on around the world, as our data usage will just continue to grow.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that these centers can be co-located in places with large amounts of renewable energy (places where land is cheap, wind is howling, geothermal activity is high, and/or the sun is shining most of the time), because it doesn’t matter as much where they are, thanks to the miracle of how fast data can fly over the internet.

The news in the middle, though, is that there is a ton of work that still needs to be done to make sure that these data centers are actually powered by renewables. If not, they might have a makeshift power system powered by fossils, such as industrial generators.

CleanTechnica’s upcoming webinar on October 22 will address this critical issue, and how we find that middle path to ensure that all your cat videos are, in fact, powered by clean energy. This webinar is produced in partnership with LandGate, a renewable energy facilitator that helps property owners connect with renewable energy developers and gives them all the tools they need to get projects done and more clean energy on the grid.