Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows • Hacker News Board

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#191

Post by phaemon » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:14 AM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #189

phaemon wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s huge lie (by omission) about renewables I live in Scotland. We now get around 90% of our electricity from renewables. We closed our last coal power station in 2016. Perhaps you should consider checking your theories against reality before accusing others of lying?

Don't cut off quotes mid sentence: > There’s huge lie (by omission) about renewables: nobody explained how to convert the world to 100% renewable energy without coal backup. Because not everywhere in the world has access to hydroelectric power. The point remains: there is no plan to power the world with renewables without a fossil fuel backup. At least not any feasible plan - batteries don't scale, and the Sabatier p…

> Don't cut off quotes mid

You managed to get the gist.

You don't need a plan to power the world. Try a plan to power your own state and let the rest of the world sort itself out. When you're at 80% renewables and then get stuck, then I'll believe it's an issue. Not when you're at 20% and handwaving theoretical excuses.

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#192

Post by phaemon » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 11:15 AM UTC

lightgreen wrote: post #177

phaemon wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s huge lie (by omission) about renewables I live in Scotland. We now get around 90% of our electricity from renewables. We closed our last coal power station in 2016. Perhaps you should consider checking your theories against reality before accusing others of lying?

Not every country has so small population and access to hydropower. Sure some small counties can go 100% renewables but it doesn’t scale.

Yes it does. Countries with bigger populations can do more, not less. That should be obvious.

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#193

Post by Lyrex » Sat, Apr 25, 2020, 2:25 PM UTC

lightgreen wrote: post #175

berkes wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can be slowed down. True. But that takes minutes or hours to do. And on anything but 100% power, the fuel innefficiency is bad. That latter is mostly a problem with coal, but even nuclear is burning fuel and costing wear. Plants can be optimized to react really fast, or run efficient on lower capacity, or run efficient on max capacity. Choose one.

There’s no need to change power output rapidly. Power demand can predicted very well. Sorry, I didn’t understand your argument.

You're right that power consumption is predictable. But looking at some great-parent posts I'd assume we're still talking about using nuclear as backup for renewable sources. In this case, often the renewable power production is the bigger variable factor in my opinion, and it's less predictable than usage patterns.

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#194

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F » Mon, Apr 27, 2020, 12:52 PM UTC

jdm2212 wrote: post #45

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #40

I hope this doesn't add to much cost to their cloud customers' bills. They've worked so hard to sell their AI solutions to the fossil fuel industry, lately, so they can help them extract and burn more oil and gas[0]. [0] https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/3/21030688/google-amazon-a...

Why would AI solutions help the fossil fuel industry burn more oil and gas? The fossil fuel industry sells oil and gas to others to burn, it doesn't light the stuff up itself for fun.

>The fossil fuel industry sells oil and gas to others to burn, it doesn't light the stuff up itself for fun.

Who said they'd burn it for fun? Necessity suffices.

>In Russia, one of the world’s top producers, the industry is considering resorting to burning its oil to take it off the market, sources told Reuters

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-oil-turmoil/when-o...

Re: Our data centers now work harder when the sun shines and wind blows

#195

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F » Mon, Apr 27, 2020, 12:56 PM UTC

jdm2212 wrote: post #185

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost all the oil we extract must be burned. There's far too little need for oil as a non-energy source, and there's a very good reason why the price of WTI is so low these days. The industry simply cannot find enough customers to burn it. How can Google, while helping others extract as much oil as possible, can still pretend it may not end up being burned? It's like a a drug dealer saying "I'm definitely not helpin…

You can make this argument more general (and IMO, even more ridiculous): Fossil fuels are global commodities. Anyone who reduces their oil consumption is reducing demand for those global commodities, which makes them cheaper. Making them cheaper makes renewable energy less competitive, which discourages investment, which means as a society we keep using fossil fuels for longer, which means in the end we produce more…

You're making the argument that reducing your demand for something does not reduce the demand for that thing, because demanding less of something makes others demand it more.