Germany, which once ruled as a powerhouse in manufacturing technology, has recently fallen to the status of 'the sick man of Europe' due to its inability to cope with high energy expenses. The United States, aiming for supremacy in artificial intelligence (AI), has declared an energy emergency and is focused on securing energy at all costs. As advanced technologies develop, energy has become a factor that determines national fortunes. This article examines the current and future energy policies of South Korea through the cases of Germany and the United States.[Editor’s note]
U.S. President Donald Trump declared a 'national energy emergency' on Jan. 20 (local time), shortly after taking office. He believes that the U.S. is in a situation where it is so short of power that it must trigger an emergency.
When a national energy emergency is triggered, the administration can allocate budget for urgent energy policies without going through Congress. Normally, processing related budget bills through Congress is essential for the federal government to push forward policies, but this process is bypassed. National emergencies are primarily triggered in situations where citizens' safety is threatened, such as wars or natural disasters.
Analysis suggests that a background to Trump’s perception of power shortages is the competition for AI supremacy. The day before his inauguration, he said, 'We need twice as much energy, or more. I will use emergency powers to enable the construction of large factories and AI facilities.'
Services like OpenAI's ChatGPT require immense computing power to operate normally, which consumes a lot of electricity. The International Energy Agency (IEA) announced that a single Google search consumes 0.3 watt-hours (Wh) of electricity, while a search with ChatGPT uses 2.9 Wh. The daily electricity usage of the most widely deployed 4th generation servers in data centers is comparable to the amount needed to charge 18 electric vehicles.
Wells Fargo, a U.S. investment bank, forecasts that electricity demand in the U.S. due to generative AI will increase 217 times from 3 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2023 to 652 TWh by 2030. According to global research agency Statista, the U.S. electricity consumption in 2023 is approximately 4,000 TWh.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has consistently urged the U.S. government to build large-scale data centers to win the AI competition against China. OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle have also announced plans to invest up to $500 billion (approximately 727 trillion won) in AI-related infrastructure over the next four years through the 'Stargate' project.
The Stargate project includes plans to build up to 20 AI data centers, with the estimated power requirement per data center being about 5 gigawatts (GW). Normally, the capacity of one nuclear power plant is 1 GW, which means that 100 new nuclear plants would be needed. For this reason, large U.S. corporations, such as Amazon, Google, and Meta, argue that nuclear power generation capacity must be tripled by 2050.
Jeong Yong-hoon, a professor in the Department of Nuclear and Quantum Engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), noted, 'The AI power demand in the U.S. is expected to rise to 652 TWh by 2030, which is similar to South Korea's annual electricity demand. It seems that the U.S. government declared an emergency because it has difficulty meeting this electricity demand,' adding, 'South Korea also needs to secure sufficient electricity supply capacity in preparation for the AI era.'
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