Question: Is piping data a long distance more cost effective than energy?
I would have thought so.
If so building data centres near hydro or geothermal plants (I'm from New Zealand where we have a lot of both) would make sense
A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
51–59 of 59 posts
Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
> One of those is Quebec (but it's not that big) Sort of a baffling statement. Quebec is gigantic. It would be a top-20 nation, by extent, if it were a nation.
Quebec has a lot of empty land. But it does not have a lot of buildable land near plentiful power, super fast internet, and highly skilled technical workers, which are all things you need to build a datacenter.
There is tons of big power producing electric dams in the middle of nowhere (north of Québec province). It’s also cold most of the year. As far as I know, datacenter doesn’t mean tons of technical workers (except during the building phase). Bringing fiber would not be impossible.
Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
#53Question: Is piping data a long distance more cost effective than energy? I would have thought so. If so building data centres near hydro or geothermal plants (I'm from New Zealand where we have a lot of both) would make sense
Yes, but I think all of that cheap power has been used up already in the US.
Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nuclear power plants take something like a decade to build (after permitting) It makes more sense to go for PV plus batteries that can be installed in a matter of weeks
how much of that 10 years is the physical limit, and how much is social / cultural / organizational / political overhead?
Does that matter much when you want to have a datacenter as quickly as possible? It’s not like those things will change quickly.
Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
#55Energy efficient computing is a very exciting field. I hope it will get more attention driven by these economic constraints. As a short teaser: Landauers principle suggests that the energy required to erase one bit off information is bounded from below by k_B T ln(2). This could lead us down a path towards reversible computing, to avoid energy costs for deleting information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s…
The work started around 10-15 years ago and is now largely done. Many people confuse large absolute numbers like 1 kW with inefficiency but today's GPUs/TPUs are close to the practical efficiency limit with today's 3 nm technology.
They might be close to the limit for what they do (I don’t know), but are they close to the limit of what we need them for?
Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
#56One really interesting strategy the US could pursue here would be to heavily tariff solar[1] and just randomly attack wind projects[2]. Just completely self-own itself on the two cheapest energy sources. It wouldn't make any sense, but it would be provocative , really drive engagement. [1] https://seia.org/news/solar-tariff-impacts/ [2] https://www.npr.org/2025/08/31/nx-s1-5522943/trump-offshore-...
Maybe the tariff could encourage local manufacturing of solar? I have no idea, but I suppose that our local manufacturing could be getting killed by economies of scale abroad. Or I am overthinking it and solar is something that (D) politicians support so the (R) president tautologically must oppose it. Therefore we must not have nice things
My guess is that the US is sliding into the pattern of ‘corrupt, resource cursed petrostate’ and all the dysfunction that comes with that. What will happen is whatever maximizes fossil fuel revenues, and lots of shiny distractions to prevent this from being scrutinized.
Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
#57What is the point of all this? Why are we using so much power for hallucinated google search?
Because, for the time being, people are buying it.
Even if that were true, that wouldn't be a useful justification. People buy drugs because they are addictive, it's not a rational decision about costs and benefits. Externalities are almost not at all considered in the contract here.
Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
When the brits were at it (With insourced nuclear engineering and low regulatory overhead) they could crank them out every 6 - 8 years. The brits let all that technical capability wither and could not do it again right now. But if someone was willing its still theoretically possible. Just takes total alignment between government and private.
OK, but people who want these actually have to build them in the countries that exist. This isn't Civilization. You cannot switch to a civic that gets more hammers at the beginning of your next turn.
Sure but the argument against nuclear is always the same. Its hard right now.
The problem is that if you dont start correcting that hardness now, the next time you think you might need a nuclear industry, its still hard.
You need to train, grant experience and give money to professionals so they can exist to build stuff. It took the UK ~ 15 years to get started, then they were cranking them out like no ones business.
Think of it this way, in 15 years you can have something you might need, or you can guarantee you wont have it whether you need it or not.
Thing is its the same for all large infrastructure products. But only in nuke do we have people actively trying to prevent the industry from being created and maintained so they can use the unreadyness as an excuse.
Re: A power shortage could short-circuit Nvidia's rise
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
how much of that 10 years is the physical limit, and how much is social / cultural / organizational / political overhead?
Does that matter much when you want to have a datacenter as quickly as possible? It’s not like those things will change quickly.
yes -- knowing the physical limit can motivate moving closer to it.