Google's Ambitious Carbon-Free Energy Goal Faces Headwinds Amid AI Boom

At MIT Technology Review’s EmTech MIT conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Google's head of advanced energy technologies, Lucia Tian, discussed the company's growing energy needs and strategies to meet them in light of AI's rapid expansion. Google's ambitious goal to run on 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030, announced in 2020, is facing significant challenges due to the ballooning electricity demand in its data centers. According to Google's latest Environmental Report, its total electricity demand more than doubled between 2020 and 2024. While the company reached 67% carbon-free energy for its data centers in 2020, it only achieved 66% last year, highlighting the difficulty in keeping pace with its growing energy consumption. To address this, Google is investing in various energy projects, including carbon capture and storage at a new natural-gas plant in Illinois and the reopening of a shuttered nuclear power plant in Iowa. The carbon capture project has faced criticism for potentially prolonging the use of fossil-fuel infrastructure, but Google argues that retrofitting existing plants isn't always feasible. The company's collaboration with NextEra Energy to reopen the Duane Arnold Energy Center nuclear plant in Iowa, scheduled for 2029, represents another significant step. Despite the challenges, Google remains committed to its carbon-free energy goal.