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Earlier quoted context omitted.
For some context, it's a country with 40 million people.
But it’s hardly industrialized right? So is that a fair comparison?
Very quick Googling suggests Wired’s estimate would be ~1.9% of US emissions. AI data center investment is, at core, a bet on increasing the productivity of labor. That’s what businesses will pay for, and what will earn the big money. If US labor productivity rises by more than 2%—and implicit in the size of this bet is a guess much higher—US carbon intensity goes down correspondingly, and these data centers end up a…
Very quick Googling suggests Wired’s estimate would be ~1.9% of US emissions. AI data center investment is, at core, a bet on increasing the productivity of labor. That’s what businesses will pay for, and what will earn the big money. If US labor productivity rises by more than 2%—and implicit in the size of this bet is a guess much higher—US carbon intensity goes down correspondingly, and these data centers end up a…
The "climate" cares little about carbon intensity of labor or dollars. It cares about absolute tons of green house gases in the atmostphere and if you use more to produce more you still use more.
It generally is called "effective altruism", eg, techno jesus will solve whatever problems creating techno jesus creates.
The AI data center narrative is the perfect storm: First most of the data center build out is happening in areas that have had little other opportunity so local resistance is muted. Abilene, Texas is referenced and is the kind of place my grandfather would lovingly say is where you go to learn to be a “dirt farmer” Second, every environmentalist in the US is fighting 100 different battles with the most anti-regulatio…
China invested hugely into renewable energy. Their grid is strong. Ours is falling apart and our renewable energy contracts keep getting shredded. Gas powered data centers is beyond dystopian
There is a lot of renewable energy in the US, and more is built all the time.
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What?
And for all that cost, are they bringing us real hope? The most ambitious people talking about this technology basically say that when it takes over all thought, there won't be much point in humans anymore.
We went from being evangelists of a message of hope to evangelists of a message of doom.
I'm not going to be one of those people. Fuck those people. I believe in the future. I will stand up and tell the next generation there is still hope, still compassion, still community and humanity and love out there. I fight for the users!!!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Abilene, Texas is also a great place to build a solar power plant with some batteries and reduce the gas bills for these datacenters. EDIT: I am not suggesting that they don’t build gas turbines or go off grid. I’m saying they can save fuel by using solar when it’s there.
There isn't a battery in the world big enough to provide enough power for data enter if this size. Some batteries in this case is a bit like saying some water about the Pacific ocean.
A large battery storage site is about 500MWh.
So this is totally doable and it’s also going to be economical as soon as the US has built enough LNG export capacity.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and that dates from the era when everyone thought that a "nuclear winter" (from an exchange of nuclear bombs between the US and USSR) was a more immediate risk than a long slow problem of climate change. That's what the French government carried out a terrorist attack against Greenpeace in New Zealand for: the Rainbow Warrior was protesting against French nuclear weapons testing. Has everyone forgotten that the…
Do people really think that uranium consuming reactors that produce plutonium are the only type of nuclear reactors?
The AI data center narrative is the perfect storm: First most of the data center build out is happening in areas that have had little other opportunity so local resistance is muted. Abilene, Texas is referenced and is the kind of place my grandfather would lovingly say is where you go to learn to be a “dirt farmer” Second, every environmentalist in the US is fighting 100 different battles with the most anti-regulatio…
Very far from pro-energy when you give companies money to cancel energy projects that are not burning green house gases.