AI takes a huge amount of energy to run and could make it harder to fight climate change. On the other hand, AI could help make our energy systems more sustainable, efficient and safer. Three experts talk all things AI and energy with a live audience. The talk was part of a daylong symposium titled “Policy Leadership in the Age of AI”, hosted by the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin.
Meet the panelists:
Michael Pyrcz is a professor in UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering and the Jackson School of Geosciences, who researches and teaches about ways to apply data analytics and machine learning to improve the exploration and safe production of minerals, groundwater and conventional energy, a.k.a. oil and gas. He also shares educational content on YouTube and elsewhere under the alias GeoStatsGuy.
Varun Rai is a professor in UT’s LBJ School, who studies the spread of clean energy technologies and how real-world factors – from economics to politics to regulation to social behaviors – drive the adoption of these technologies.
Rob James is an attorney at the law firm Pillsbury, who leads a number of energy and infrastructure projects for the firm in Texas and California. Those projects have included AI data centers and zero-emission power generation and storage.
Dig Deeper
The A.I. Power Grab, NYTimes (Oct. 2024)
A bottle of water per email: the hidden environmental costs of using AI chatbots, Washington Post (Sep. 2024)
Four ways AI is making the power grid faster and more resilient, MIT Technology Review (Nov. 2023)
Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI, Washington Post (Sep. 2024)
Extreme Weather Is Taxing Utilities More Often. Can A.I. Help?, New York Times (Sep. 2024)
Fixing AI’s energy crisis, Nature (focused on reducing computer hardware’s power consumption - Oct. 2024)
A.I. Needs Copper. It Just Helped to Find Millions of Tons of It., New York Times (July 2024)
AI is poised to drive 160% increase in data center power demand, Goldman Sachs (May 2024)
Photos from Policy Leadership in the Age of AI Symposium (Oct. 2024)
Episode Credits
Our co-hosts are Marc Airhart, science writer and podcaster in the College of Natural Sciences and Casey Boyle, associate professor of rhetoric and director of UT’s Digital Writing & Research Lab.
Executive producers are Christine Sinatra and Dan Oppenheimer.
Sound design and audio editing by Robert Scaramuccia. Theme music is by Aiolos Rue. Interviews are recorded at the Liberal Arts ITS recording studio.
The cover photo for this episode is by Thomas Meredith, courtesy of LBJ School of Public Affairs.
About AI for the Rest of Us
AI for the Rest of Us is a joint production of The University of Texas at Austin’s College of Natural Sciences and College of Liberal Arts. This podcast is part of the University’s Year of AI initiative. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests, and not of The University of Texas at Austin. You can listen via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, RSS, or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also listen on the web at aifortherest.net. Have questions or comments? Contact: mairhart[AT]austin.utexas.edu