Ok. A serious question.
I frequently hear that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity. Then why are they using gas turbines? Is it because they can generate more power with a smaller real estate footprint?
New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
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Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#12Note that this is about absolute pollution, not relative to power output. Pollution is high, because power output is high. Relatively, for what it's worth, it's just a fairly normal gas plant.
So the most interesting thing to take away from this: There is a lot of demand for more power and in this instance it's satisfied by gas. Which is still much better than coal. Which is still much worse than renewables.
Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#13All this AI doomerism is hiding the obvious and immediate harm that will cause a mass extinction event. Funnily enough people at Anthropic are predicting the end of the Anthropocene, completely absolving themselves from any responsibility for the actual reality that the Anthropocene is defined by human made geologically noticeable changes. Like causing a global climate catastrophe.
Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#14Those in power seem to think that a compute advantage is necessary to maintain economic advantage. Despite this, the voters universally hate data centers, so much so that both NY and TX have data center construction moratoriums. Despite this, those in power refuse any environmentally aware energy policy nor water policy. Despite this, companies have been trying to be environmentally aware for either moral or marketin…
The entire planet will lose as ecosystems die out, food and water supplies run low, refugee crises and global conflicts ramp up. But hey, line go up!
Don't worry; republicans are way ahead of that refugee crises by generation fervent far right ethnic nationalism globally, independently of course.
Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#15It is insane how we're accelerating the climate catastrophe in an ideology-driven race to be king of the ashes. Capitalism is a death cult, AI capitalism doubly so.
Communism dried up the third largest lake in the world just for irrigation (while starving tens of millions in the meantime).
Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#16Those in power seem to think that a compute advantage is necessary to maintain economic advantage. Despite this, the voters universally hate data centers, so much so that both NY and TX have data center construction moratoriums. Despite this, those in power refuse any environmentally aware energy policy nor water policy. Despite this, companies have been trying to be environmentally aware for either moral or marketin…
The overall American economy is going to pay the price in the long term. And current foreign policy is reducing trust in America as a reliable and stable partner, which will make things even worse.
Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#17Ok. A serious question. I frequently hear that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity. Then why are they using gas turbines? Is it because they can generate more power with a smaller real estate footprint?
Under current administration, I'm not even sure its possible to build out green energy for this sort of thing at scale - this article[1] was on the front page just yesterday
Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#18Note that this is about absolute pollution, not relative to power output. Pollution is high, because power output is high. Relatively, for what it's worth, it's just a fairly normal gas plant. So the most interesting thing to take away from this: There is a lot of demand for more power and in this instance it's satisfied by gas. Which is still much better than coal. Which is still much worse than renewables.
Luckily the Trump administration has just paid over a billion dollars for the second time to stop a renewable energy project...
Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#19Ok. A serious question. I frequently hear that wind and solar are the cheapest forms of electricity. Then why are they using gas turbines? Is it because they can generate more power with a smaller real estate footprint?
It's because the permits are easier to get. It's very hard to get people to organize to make renewable energy permitting easier.
Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.
#20It is insane how we're accelerating the climate catastrophe in an ideology-driven race to be king of the ashes. Capitalism is a death cult, AI capitalism doubly so.
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