If every country had to create their own version of those products we would end up having still more power consumption - considering that not every one would be able to have the kind of professionals that Google and Microsoft have.
Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
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Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#12Given how wildly profitable they are, we should be passing laws that they must produce X % of their power needs from renewable sources, where X approaches 100%. This would be a jobs program that would also help the planet. Win win. Investors would make slightly less money in the short term, but our grandchildren will be able to live. I think that is a good trade off.
Google, Microsoft and others are directly buying electricity from nuclear and renewable sources, doing some major greenwashing this way. https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpow... By doing that they force all the others to rely on the "other" sources (gas, coal...) and not replace fast enough those ones with clean sources. The production is physically limited, if you have the money and power to b…
By what? We could easily sustain higher production rates for solar, wind and nuclear. The constraints are mainly bureaucratic.
> prefer that those nuclear plans and renewable farms are used for better purposes as hospitals, industries, homes
How do you aim to pay for them?
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#13https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40859993
A click bait headline vs. content but a concern documented by the company.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#14Given how wildly profitable they are, we should be passing laws that they must produce X % of their power needs from renewable sources, where X approaches 100%. This would be a jobs program that would also help the planet. Win win. Investors would make slightly less money in the short term, but our grandchildren will be able to live. I think that is a good trade off.
Why do you assume that the tax incidence falls on investors, rather than on customers and/or employees? With sales tax or VAT people tend to automatically assume 100% passthrough (so that the incidence falls completely on customers/consumers) even though they're also collected by companies. In reality taxes are borne by a combination of customers/employees/owners, with proportions determined by their relative price elasticities, rather than by who lawmakers appointed to collect the tax.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#15Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#16"Google's carbon emissions surge nearly 50% due to AI energy demand" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40859993 A click bait headline vs. content but a concern documented by the company.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#17Given how wildly profitable they are, we should be passing laws that they must produce X % of their power needs from renewable sources, where X approaches 100%. This would be a jobs program that would also help the planet. Win win. Investors would make slightly less money in the short term, but our grandchildren will be able to live. I think that is a good trade off.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#18Given how wildly profitable they are, we should be passing laws that they must produce X % of their power needs from renewable sources, where X approaches 100%. This would be a jobs program that would also help the planet. Win win. Investors would make slightly less money in the short term, but our grandchildren will be able to live. I think that is a good trade off.
Google, Microsoft and others are directly buying electricity from nuclear and renewable sources, doing some major greenwashing this way. https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpow... By doing that they force all the others to rely on the "other" sources (gas, coal...) and not replace fast enough those ones with clean sources. The production is physically limited, if you have the money and power to b…
If some companies care enough about their image to pay extra to buy green energy, that's good! It makes that production more profitable, and encourages more such production to be built faster. Why are you trying to disincentivize that with "greenwashing" slurs?
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#19Given how wildly profitable they are, we should be passing laws that they must produce X % of their power needs from renewable sources, where X approaches 100%. This would be a jobs program that would also help the planet. Win win. Investors would make slightly less money in the short term, but our grandchildren will be able to live. I think that is a good trade off.
Let's say Microsoft could save 25% on their electricity bill by consuming power from wind farms, I think they'd work out a way to do more AI training when the wind is blowing and scale down when more power is delivered from coal.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#20Given how wildly profitable they are, we should be passing laws that they must produce X % of their power needs from renewable sources, where X approaches 100%. This would be a jobs program that would also help the planet. Win win. Investors would make slightly less money in the short term, but our grandchildren will be able to live. I think that is a good trade off.