The ~spice~ inference must flow. Some of the data centers now run disconnected on gas turbines 24/7, which is better for electricity prices but they can be big nuisance for people living nearby.
excess pollution and noise are more than a nuisance
County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
31–40 of 201 posts
Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#32Interestingly, San Francisco has built no more of these AI datacenters and has seen a rate hike larger than that over the last few years. If we could at least get a few more datacenters that would be nice considering the rate hikes approved here.
That's because San Francisco subsidizes the rest of the state, PG&E is a state-wide utility. San Francisco is attempting to run its own utility, but is meeting resistance from PG&E and the parts of the state SF subsidizes.
public infrastructure should be owned by the public
Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#33The text of the article indicates that the county government sent this message to all government facilities, but I suppose that doesn't make for quite as sexy a headline and a public school is technically a government facility. I appreciate 404 media's mission but isn't there enough stupid shit existing naturally in the world for them to illuminate that we don't need to do this?
> I appreciate 404 media's mission but isn't there enough stupid shit existing naturally in the world
Like 37 data centres in a small rural county?
Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#34Conserving energy makes sense regardless of nearby data center electricity consumption.
In much the same way that letting a fart out makes sense even when you're in a hurricane.
The list they give is overwhelmingly dominated by one item:
“Turn off your lights when leaving your workspace, including when you leave for the day. Turn off your computers/laptops at the end of each workday. If your workspace has windows, adjust the blinds to manage heat from sunlight. Unplug any appliances, chargers, or other electrical items when they are not in use. Please limit use of (or refrain altogether from using) space heaters. A typical space heater alone can cost the county from $150 to $300 per year in electricity costs.”
$20 of AI tokens over a month? Probably somewhere between, on average, 40-320 W, depending on how you weight the cost of training and which recent-ish model you're using.
Tokenmaxxers? They're the heavy users. $2k/month (or whatever) gets you a lot of electricity through those GPUs.
Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#35[deleted]
Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#36If everyone turned off their lights 100% of the time they left their workstation, they could power those additional data centers for about one second.
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Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#37If everyone turned off their lights 100% of the time they left their workstation, they could power those additional data centers for about one second.
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You dropped the time component from the first, so yes, the result is incomparable.
“Power spent on lighting worstations while vacant” is energy
Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#38You want to use a lot of electricity? Great! We sell electricity. We will need cash in advance to handle some upgrades, rather than passing those costs on to other rate payers.
Exactly! Everyone's been conditioned that Data Centers = higher electric bills for residents. Of course, another option is for politicians to put any added costs on the data center companies. One tech guy even proposed, in order to gain wider acceptance, having the data center companies pay the whole electric bill for the town, so that data centers = 0 electric bills for residents.
Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#39If everyone turned off their lights 100% of the time they left their workstation, they could power those additional data centers for about one second.
Turn off computers and phones. No need for DCs then.
Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'
#40The text of the article indicates that the county government sent this message to all government facilities, but I suppose that doesn't make for quite as sexy a headline and a public school is technically a government facility. I appreciate 404 media's mission but isn't there enough stupid shit existing naturally in the world for them to illuminate that we don't need to do this?
> I appreciate 404 media's mission but isn't there enough stupid shit existing naturally in the world Like 37 data centres in a small rural county?
This is suburban Richmond, not a "small rural county".