AI will do more to grow fossil fuel output than clean energy, new study warns

Key points

• A new study modelled 64 scenarios and found AI causes a net rise in yearly carbon emissions of 0.47 to 1.8 gigatonnes, roughly 1 to 5 percent of the global energy sector's annual output.
• AI could increase recoverable oil and gas reserves by 5 percent by making drilling and extraction more efficient.
• Deepwater drilling projects, which operate on the ocean floor and are among the most expensive energy operations on Earth, could see costs fall by 10 percent with AI assistance.
• The study found AI's emissions-cutting benefits for wind and solar do not offset the extra fossil fuel production it enables.

The promise was simple: artificial intelligence would help speed up the clean energy transition. Smarter grids, faster wind farm planning, cheaper solar. The numbers, though, tell a messier story.

A new study, reported by The Guardian, compared what AI can do for renewable energy against what it can do for coal, oil and gas. The researchers ran 64 separate scenarios, adjusting assumptions about how quickly AI gets adopted, how productive it makes workers and machines, and how much each sector uses it.

Every single scenario produced the same direction of travel. Net carbon emissions went up.

So what exactly did they find?

AI raises net yearly carbon pollution by between 0.47 and 1.8 gigatonnes. To put that in plain terms: the top end of that range is roughly equivalent to adding another Germany-sized economy's worth of energy emissions to the atmosphere every year.

The reason is straightforward. Fossil fuel companies have enormous incentives to squeeze more out of every well and every mine. AI gives them a powerful new tool to do exactly that. The study found AI could boost recoverable oil and gas reserves by 5 percent, simply by helping geologists and engineers find and extract resources that would otherwise be left in the ground.

Deepwater projects, the offshore drilling operations that sit miles beneath the ocean surface and cost billions to run, could get 10 percent cheaper with AI assistance. Lower costs mean more projects become financially worth doing.

Does AI not help renewables too?

It does, but not enough to cancel out the fossil fuel effect. AI genuinely helps with things like predicting wind output, optimising solar panel placement and managing electricity grids more efficiently. The study does not dispute that. The problem is that the fossil fuel industry is larger, older and has more to gain in the short term from AI-driven efficiency gains.

The clean energy sector is growing fast, but it is starting from a smaller base. AI helps both sides of the ledger. It just helps the wrong side more, right now.

What does this mean for ordinary people?

For anyone watching fuel prices, energy bills or climate targets, the study is a signal that AI alone is not a climate fix. It is a tool, and like any tool, its impact depends entirely on who uses it and for what.

Policymakers who assume AI will automatically tilt the energy system toward cleaner sources may need to think again. Without rules that direct AI investment toward renewables and away from new fossil fuel extraction, the technology could make hitting climate goals harder, not easier.

The study does not argue for banning AI in the energy sector. It argues for paying much closer attention to where the benefits actually land.