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Pollution from Big Tech's data centre boom costs US public health $5.4bn

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Re: Pollution from Big Tech's data centre boom costs US public health $5.4bn

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is just making the point. Originally cars ran on leaded gasoline, which was very bad. But we didn't ban cars, we got unleaded gasoline. Then they were emitting too much in terms of sulfur and nitrogen oxides, so we got low-sulfur fuels and catalytic converters. Then it was brake dust from friction brakes, but now hybrids have regenerative braking. Then it was CO2, so we got electric cars that can be…

You are right, we will get bailed out by some yet uninvented technological solution and never face consequences for our own hubris. The climatologists are handwringing as you suggest because the solution is surely around the corner in the mind of some broccoli headed teen developed on a tick tock attention span. The ship will sail quite smoothly into the future. We have never been wrong before.

Your complaint was about tires, which is a much smaller problem than the ones that have known solutions, and one that has plausible solutions because it's a normal materials science problem.

"Climatologists" are talking about CO2, which is the thing we already have everything we need in order to solve. You use electric ground vehicles, charge them with solar panels or nuclear reactors. Use synthetic or biofuels for aircraft. Switch to electric heat pumps to heat buildings. This isn't a matter of "we don't know how to do it" or "the only option is to reduce energy consumption", it's only a question of whether people are willing to adopt these things fast enough, because adopting them faster sometimes costs more in the short-term. So that's still a thing we actually have to do, but it isn't really a question of what to do, only a question of how to get people to do the known thing.

Re: Pollution from Big Tech's data centre boom costs US public health $5.4bn

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We had a carbon tax, sort of, briefly, but no one wanted it, and still doesn’t. Australia briefly had something their politicians called a carbon tax, but it was really cap and trade, which is an entirely different system and is rubbish. In particular, you have to give ordinary people back the money the carbon tax collects or they'll rightfully hate it, which cap and trade does not. And then, because the system the…

> Australia is spread out. Opinions / data, let's go with the data. It's really not. Australia is mostly uninhabited, with most people living in very few high density places. The average commute distance in Australia is 16 kilometres; 90% of Australians live on the East Coast; 73% of Australian's commute less than 20 kilometres.[1] Even Western Australian has people living outside of Perth, which, by the way, is the…

You keep talking about data but then looking at the wrong data.

Average commute or distance traveled per year isn't the interesting number. If you're considering an electric car with a range of 300km, it doesn't matter if your average commute is 16km or 100km, what matters is, do you take trips in excess of 300km?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/more-aussies-holidaymakers-ta...:

> The number of survey respondents who have taken a road trip increased to 91.9% in 2024 from 88.4% in the same survey in 2022

And if anything, fewer total miles traveled per year would make EVs less attractive there because of less in terms of fuel savings.

> Plug-in hybrids are mostly not a thing here.

Plug-in hybrids are relatively new because they're basically normal hybrids with bigger batteries, so the batteries had to get cheap and light enough to make that work, and they got faster adoption in countries like the US because of tax incentives that favor PHEVs over traditional HEVs. Meanwhile from your own link, 25% of new cars in Australia are some type of hybrid of BEV, compared to 19% in the US. Consistent with "they are buying more fuel efficient vehicles", it's just that those vehicles are turbocharged low displacement or hybrid SUVs.

It's possible that the difference in tax incentives is causing carmakers to allocate PHEVs to the countries providing incentives specifically for those given a finite amount of battery production capacity, but according to your own numbers PHEVs are a good fit for Australians. Average commute is well within their all-electric range but then you still have no trouble taking the occasional road trip.

Re: Pollution from Big Tech's data centre boom costs US public health $5.4bn

#163
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the author thought West Virginia was the western part of Virginia? I know it sounds preposterous, but I think it’s commensurate with the quality of the headline and article.

West Virginia is not West Virginia. Makes more sense if you flip it around. West Virginia is not west Virginia. Also West Virginia would more accurately be North Virginia.

(But not “northern” Virginia aka NoVA, where the data centers are … just to make it more confusing)

Re: Pollution from Big Tech's data centre boom costs US public health $5.4bn

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Australia is spread out. Opinions / data, let's go with the data. It's really not. Australia is mostly uninhabited, with most people living in very few high density places. The average commute distance in Australia is 16 kilometres; 90% of Australians live on the East Coast; 73% of Australian's commute less than 20 kilometres.[1] Even Western Australian has people living outside of Perth, which, by the way, is the…

You keep talking about data but then looking at the wrong data. Average commute or distance traveled per year isn't the interesting number. If you're considering an electric car with a range of 300km, it doesn't matter if your average commute is 16km or 100km, what matters is, do you take trips in excess of 300km? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/more-aussies-holidaymakers-ta... : > The number of survey respondents who…

I'm all for it. I owned a hybrid SUV for a bit, performance and fuel economy were quite pleasant. But I kinda need a van, and can't drive four cars simultaneously, and there aren't any hybrid vans available here.

Re: Pollution from Big Tech's data centre boom costs US public health $5.4bn

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You keep talking about data but then looking at the wrong data. Average commute or distance traveled per year isn't the interesting number. If you're considering an electric car with a range of 300km, it doesn't matter if your average commute is 16km or 100km, what matters is, do you take trips in excess of 300km? https://finance.yahoo.com/news/more-aussies-holidaymakers-ta... : > The number of survey respondents who…

I'm all for it. I owned a hybrid SUV for a bit, performance and fuel economy were quite pleasant. But I kinda need a van, and can't drive four cars simultaneously, and there aren't any hybrid vans available here.

Q3 this year:

https://www.drive.com.au/news/2025-ford-transit-custom-phev-...

Re: Pollution from Big Tech's data centre boom costs US public health $5.4bn

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm all for it. I owned a hybrid SUV for a bit, performance and fuel economy were quite pleasant. But I kinda need a van, and can't drive four cars simultaneously, and there aren't any hybrid vans available here.

Q3 this year: https://www.drive.com.au/news/2025-ford-transit-custom-phev-...

Oh neat, thanks for the heads-up.

Re: Pollution from Big Tech's data centre boom costs US public health $5.4bn

#167
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because amortised capital cost > operational (power) cost It's cheaper to build a 1 GW baseload power plant to sit beside your existing GPUs, than to buy another 1 GW of GPUs to place on the other side of the planet. Also, latency. Also, a large scale roll out of nuclear would be cheaper than solar regardless. Most of the cost of recent nuclear builds is learning cost. We build them so infrequently that people retire…

But is it cheaper? Building 1GW nuclear power unit costs about 4 billion dollars [0] [0] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Белорусская_АЭС#Стоимость_прое...

Ok, it's indeed much cheaper.

Unless, of course, it's the Vogtle plant or similar Western-built one, which cost about 17 billions per GW and took 10 years to construct. In this case, the price is comparable if you factor in the cost of money.

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