Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

404media.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 201 posts

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#101

Post by infecto »

phil21 wrote: post #93
cduzz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past couple decades, the vast majority of electricity demands have gone down due to modern substitutions for things people want being way more efficient. People use LED / CFL bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs, heat pumps instead of resistive heating for water heaters and house heaters, etc. People have also deployed lots of solar to their houses. So by every normal measure, just by looking around outside and…

Residential energy reduction is one small piece of it. The de-industrializing of the US is a much larger reason we have been able to use cheap parlor tricks vs. actually building things for the past 40ish years. Those cheap tricks are now running out of easy gains, and the chickens are coming home to roost. At some point you run out of your grandfathers investment into future society and basic infrastructure. To anyo…

Agree! My wish is that instead of focusing purely on demand (it’s kind of hard to disaggregate) we refocus on figuring out how to renew generation efforts and updating our transmission. I have seen the same exact issue locally. Large solar farms tens of miles away from civilization in pure farm land that get pushed back on for no good reason.

We have gotten lucky and lazy for the past few decades.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#102

Post by toomuchtodo »

barney54 wrote: post #100
infecto wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, show one critical research paper that draws a solid link towards data centers and price increases. You linked to so many articles, many of which just spoke on demand increases. I absolutely believe that in some grids, data centers have driven some of the increase but you claiming that data centers are the only problem reads like those folks scared of solar farms being built. Just because you want to believe it…

So far, the data are clear--data centers are not increasing electricity rates. Those are the facts. https://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/the-grid/the-numb... This may change in the future, but so far, there is no statistically significant correlation. Not only that, but states with increasing electricity consumption have lower rates. So it's possible data center will lead to lower rates.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Energy_Research

> IER is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025, a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election. The Institute's CEO and founder, Robert L. Bradley Jr., is a senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research and Energy & Climate Change Fellow at the Institute of Economic Affairs in London. He has written eight books, including Energy: The Master Resource; Climate Alarmism Reconsidered; and Edison to Enron.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/institute-for-energy-research...

> Overall, we rate the Institute for Energy Research as Right Biased due to its strong advocacy for fossil fuel expansion and deregulation, aligning with free-market conservative energy policies. We rate its reporting as Mixed for factual accuracy, as it does not always align with the consensus of science by selectively presenting data that favors fossil fuels while downplaying or omitting information on climate change and renewable energy viability. IER is a nonprofit organization that does not fully disclose its funding sources. However, past reports indicate financial ties to fossil fuel interests, including donations from ExxonMobil and groups associated with Charles Koch—a key funder of climate-skeptical and free-market advocacy. While the institute claims to support “energy freedom,” its funding sources suggest a strong alignment with the fossil fuel industry.

(I've forwarded your IER citation to a data science practitioner in the energy space to decompose, more to come)

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#103

Post by Liftyee »

conductr wrote: post #99
fluorinerocket wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there are a bunch of terrible ideas in this thread. Video camera controlled lights? Yes f privacy of everyone to save a few bucks? well I think that was sarcastic Motion controlled lights are always timed badly, incredibly annoying to have them switch off when you are sitting still working or taking a duece. How about the janitor shuts off the lights after everyone goes home?

How about just forget about this thread and don’t let it be a major annoyance. It’s a very minor annoyance. It would be a more widespread debate/discussion if so many people were upset by it. At the least, just admit you’re in the minority that are so upset by it and then just live with it anyways. I say that to make a point about magnitude of annoyances. Sure it’s annoying. So are potholes. It does seem like a sligh…

Smarter device would just require a little more cost. Current devices can work with no code, just analog electronics.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#104

Post by infecto »

mrguyorama wrote: post #98
infecto wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, show one critical research paper that draws a solid link towards data centers and price increases. You linked to so many articles, many of which just spoke on demand increases. I absolutely believe that in some grids, data centers have driven some of the increase but you claiming that data centers are the only problem reads like those folks scared of solar farms being built. Just because you want to believe it…

Please tell me the mental model you have that you believe you can plug a 1GW load into an existing power network and not increase prices? Do you think that distribution infrastructure required would be free? Do you think markets respond to new demand with new supply instantly? The market incentive to increase generation is higher prices . Data center investments, in terms of the energy they will require, far outstrip…

I am not suggesting that data centers or any load growth for that matter have no impact on prices but rather challenging the idea than data centers are the primary/only reason certain regions have had price increases. Most of the shared links focus on PJM which imo has a flawed auction model that requires 3 year forecasts that nobody would expect to get correct. But it makes for sensational journalism because you can show pictures of data centers up against homes.

I have yet to see any strong research showing a correlation to data center growth and price increases. If you have any beyond a gut feeling I would love to read!

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#105

Post by [deleted] »

philipallstar wrote: post #85
Tangurena2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My state almost got a bill passed that would have made data centers pay for the new generating capacity. The House passed it, but the Senate strangled it. Thanks lobbyists! https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/26rs/hb593.html

The lobbyists are just doing their jobs well. It's the Senate that isn't. Blame the people who you pay taxes to purely to be impartial.

[deleted]

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#106

Post by jlarocco »

philipallstar wrote: post #85
Tangurena2 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My state almost got a bill passed that would have made data centers pay for the new generating capacity. The House passed it, but the Senate strangled it. Thanks lobbyists! https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/26rs/hb593.html

The lobbyists are just doing their jobs well. It's the Senate that isn't. Blame the people who you pay taxes to purely to be impartial.

There's no reason not to blame lobbyists as well. A lobbyist saying "it's just business," doesn't excuse them for being assholes.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#107

Post by cwillu »

sokoloff wrote: post #68
cwillu wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You dropped the time component from the first, so yes, the result is incomparable. “Power spent on lighting worstations while vacant” is energy

Assume that each workstation is lit by 100W of lighting and is vacant 18 hours per day (to make the math easy). I claim that's 75W of power that could be reclaimed by turning off a 100W load 75% of the time. Explain how you get to energy or how I dropped time, please.

2400 watt hours in a day, being reduced to 600 watt hours.

If you're not going to be charitable in interpreting comments, then perhaps this isn't the venue for you.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#108

Post by sokoloff »

cwillu wrote: post #107
sokoloff wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assume that each workstation is lit by 100W of lighting and is vacant 18 hours per day (to make the math easy). I claim that's 75W of power that could be reclaimed by turning off a 100W load 75% of the time. Explain how you get to energy or how I dropped time, please.

2400 watt hours in a day, being reduced to 600 watt hours. If you're not going to be charitable in interpreting comments, then perhaps this isn't the venue for you.

Uh... Watt-hours per day reduces to Watts in dimensional analysis, which is of course my original point.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#109

Post by cduzz »

phil21 wrote: post #93
cduzz wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the past couple decades, the vast majority of electricity demands have gone down due to modern substitutions for things people want being way more efficient. People use LED / CFL bulbs instead of incandescent bulbs, heat pumps instead of resistive heating for water heaters and house heaters, etc. People have also deployed lots of solar to their houses. So by every normal measure, just by looking around outside and…

Residential energy reduction is one small piece of it. The de-industrializing of the US is a much larger reason we have been able to use cheap parlor tricks vs. actually building things for the past 40ish years. Those cheap tricks are now running out of easy gains, and the chickens are coming home to roost. At some point you run out of your grandfathers investment into future society and basic infrastructure. To anyo…

I think the "party line" is that the goal shouldn't be "1950s grid, but bigger and with more red meat!"

Renewables actually cover a lot of the newer demand and can be put around where it doesn't require as much transmission capacity because the production is happening closer to the demand.

And frankly, these jumbo sized data centers can just go figure out how to power themselves. If they want to put PV and wind and some peaker plants on their campus and they can actually meet the environmental requirements, go to it. So far they seem to be dumping AI dioxin into the local waterways, but it is probably possible to run these things without grid power.

In my whole career I've seen computers getting smaller and more efficient. Sometimes you'd need more of them, especially if your product is growing, but almost never would you need these radical increases in power draw to keep up with the red queen.

Re: County with 37 Data Centers Asks Schools to 'Conserve Electricity'

#110

Post by fluorinerocket »

conductr wrote: post #99
fluorinerocket wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there are a bunch of terrible ideas in this thread. Video camera controlled lights? Yes f privacy of everyone to save a few bucks? well I think that was sarcastic Motion controlled lights are always timed badly, incredibly annoying to have them switch off when you are sitting still working or taking a duece. How about the janitor shuts off the lights after everyone goes home?

How about just forget about this thread and don’t let it be a major annoyance. It’s a very minor annoyance. It would be a more widespread debate/discussion if so many people were upset by it. At the least, just admit you’re in the minority that are so upset by it and then just live with it anyways. I say that to make a point about magnitude of annoyances. Sure it’s annoying. So are potholes. It does seem like a sligh…

I am certainly in the minority and I do live with it.

Things like motion sensor lights, faucets that turn off so quickly that you have to hold your hands in weird position to wash them, 1.6 gallon flush toilets are all completely avoidable things that are forced on us by a misguided sense of doo gooding.

These so called innovations are WORSE than what they replaced, less reliable, and often are so badly designed they accomplish the exact opposite of what they are intended to do.

A increasing retry time motion sensor light switch is a good idea. But then again, wherever these things are installed, they go with the cheapest thing that to meet code and get whatever energy certification.

Zero Fs are given by the people who don't have to use the room. The worst thing will be what is used. That is my experience.

Oh you want to change the timersetting? Guess what that's on a dip switch behind the face plate, and you need to find and shut off the breaker and pull the thing from the wall. Put in a ticket to facilities, we'll get to it never

Yes let's make you flush 5 times to save 0 water over a conventional while we run the sprinklers to keep our immaculate lawn green during a 105 degree summer.

Want to take a nice 5 gpm shower? No, you need to let almond farmers drain the river before it gets to the ocean so everybody can have almond milk. Stay in there twice as long buddy, don't know what to tell you.

Post reply on HN