Locator: 48417AIENERGY.
As noted the other day, my non-Bakken focus has turned to large data centers (LDCs). My focus has changed for two reasons:
- for investing purposes; and,
- simply because I find the subject so fascinating.
Right on cue, EuroNews has an update taking energy into consideration. Link here.
From the linked article:
As Europe’s artificial intelligence (AI) ambitions grow, so does the rapid expanse of data centres and the fossil fuels needed to power them.
Europe’s market saw a 168 per cent increase in data centre investment compared to the same period last year.
Europe’s leading cities for data hubs are London, Paris, and Frankfurt (surprise, surprise).
London got a fresh investment from Amazon’s cloud computing division AWS on Wednesday, which announced a plan to invest £8 billion (€9.5 billion) over the next five years to build and operate data centres in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, Microsoft announced in May that it was investing €4 billion in French data centres and AI training, and Amazon announced the same month it would invest €15.7 billion to expand its data centres in the northeastern region of Aragon in Spain.
By 2026 -- in less than two years -- data centres around the world could be using a total of 1,000 terawatt-hours annually, the International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates, adding that this is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan. [Think: lots and lots of natural gas unless we revert to using coal.]
The IEA states in its 2024 report that of the 8,000 data centres in the world, a third are in the United States and 16 per cent are in Europe. Population, EU: 450 million. Population, US: 330 million.
The European Union can expect data centre electricity consumption to rise from just under 100 terawatt-hours in 2022 to almost 150 terawatt-hour by 2026.
"Across Europe and over the course of the next 12 months, we are anticipating a monumental wave of next-generation AI demand albeit supply will be tempered given the dearth of available high voltage power,” Stephen Beard, global head of data centres development and investment at Knight Frank, said in a statement.
“The winners will be those that are able to utilise alternative power solutions with earlier demand-only connection dates," he added.
So how much energy will the LDCs cost the EU?
The EU estimates that by 2039 -- fifteen years from now -- the bloc will consume a paltry 3 percent of all energy used .... and the EU is concerned whether the bloc will have enough energy to support even that paltry amount.
EU poster child for marketing solar power? Spain. So, then this:
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