41–50 of 535 posts
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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how about the non-stop methane burnoff for months ("flare") from all the oil fracking fields in the US that can be seen from SPACE for the past DECADE * https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/10/20/ameri... * https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/gas-drillin... that's already raising the local area temps, why not put that wasted fuel to work instead? build the datacenters literally next to the fr…
https://www.crusoe.ai/resources/blog/understanding-the-probl...
> Crusoe has built their business around turning flaring from an operational and regulatory risk for oil and gas companies, as well as an existential risk for our planet, into a multi-solve solution. Crusoe doesn’t just mitigate flaring emissions. They capture the gas, convert it into energy, and use it to power computing infrastructure.
Edit: Crusoe sold its bitcoin-mining operation including the Digital Flare Mitigation business to NYDIG in 2025, so the above may be inaccurate.
so now we are speed-running global warming there are now record setting gas turbine sales instead of solar/nuclear * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk8ziQCWK1w and for what? so we can have totally useless "AI" customer service agents where you still have to demand to talk to a human to properly get a problem solved
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1. Natural gas still produces CO2, which is a climate change driver. (And, since burning more of it will only increase global temperatures, the data center will have more trouble losing its excess heat.
2. Even if a data centre uses a totally clean energy source, it's still excess usage. That clean energy could have been used elsewhere. Until all energy is clean, usage by unnecessary sources is a net negative.
"The attribution of this warming to data center waste heat is supported by the consistent alignment of the temperature signal with the prevailing wind direction across multiple sites, dates, and meteorological conditions. " Well, no? That could also mean that the heat island effect of the (statutorily mandated) employee parking lot is causal.
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
TikTok and social media
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
TikTok and social media
I cannot figure out if this data center panic is legit or trumped up. There are legitimate nation-state and political entities that would love to create pressure for degrowth in this area. And, pollution and natural resources are a concern, yes, fine, sure. NIMBY happens, I get it ... *BUT*, we've been building huge data centers for decades and they are minuscule compared to the size of the earth. My skeptic meter ma…
It's just the outrage story of the month. There will be some new moral panic in September and we'll all move on. The attention span for topics like this on social media is quite short.
The whole data center heat/water thing is like not even in the top 100 risks/issues related to AI, but it's all people seem to care about. Why is that?