Wow do I love this visualization, but the title is pretty on point too: “It’s the Age of Electricity and America Isn’t Ready”. Pretty wild that we all chose an area of study that is so key to modern life (I mean, sure it has been for a long time, but even moreso in the future)
1 Like
Behind the pay-wall 
Thank you for taking the time to send this 
The reduction in energy usage from LED bulbs is awe-inspiring… but…
What happened right after, roughly 2016, with the refrigeration, office equipment, and computing categories in commercial that more than took up the lighting energy reductions? The residential usage was offset by heating, cooling, water heating about the same time. THAT I’d chalk up from the push to transition from gas to electricity in those categories. Is ~2016 when data centers (AI or otherwise) started being built in earnest? If not, what else accounts for that usage bump?
Normal data centers consume an order of magnitude less energy than AI ones. Traditional is typically 5–15 kW per rack, where AI is currently 40–150 kW. The mass build out really only started in the last 3 years or so.
My guess is electric cars. The Tesla model 3 was launched mid 2017.
I’m not sure replacing gas powered household appliances with electric would make that much impact.