I wonder how much extra revenue this will bring to AWS/GCP etc selling more instances to cover the performance loss on servers?
At least the additional renewable generation capacity built out will exist for decades (while processors should become more efficient as these security issues are addressed and new hardware rolls out).
Not yay. This is an overnight massive bump so they are going to consume from the same existing pool of renewables, forcing utilities to use more non renewables to make up for the demand difference.
Also, even when they do build out the renewable generation to make up the difference, it's still environmentally a problem due to the manufacturing of the renewable generation (solar panels, windmills, transformers, etc).
We have no surplus of renewable energy to absorb this kinda stuff so more energy usage is always bad at this point. It's just slightly less bad when they commit to paying to fund renewable.
Here's an example of one article on the matter, which I just skimmed a little.
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-electricity-solar/
I'm guessing that CPU's use a whole lot less electricity than things like AC systems, so they probably don't affect total electricity used by that much. I was able to surmise that a 3 ton central air conditioner uses around 3500 watts per hour while an Intel I7 (whole system) uses around 150 watts per hour.
My theory, then, is that this won't affect total power use in the U.S. all that much.
They’ll sell more servers, but they just lost 10% (or whatever) of their headroom all around the world.