The fanciful, futuristic dream of an AI era has been powered by present-day energy all along. Increasingly, though, it looks like it’s going to be powered by yesterday’s energy too, by which I mean coal, an energy source with climate change externalities comparable to other combustible fuel , but with deadly effects on the local environment.

Now, according to a Politico report , itself drawn from a report by the think tank Frontier Group , utilities’ plans to retire 30 coal-burning units have now been delayed in order to supply energy to data centers.

As EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin wrote in a Fox News op-ed (also quoted by Politico), “To meet growing demand from domestic manufacturing and the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence data centers, America’s coal-powered powerpl

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