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New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

nytimes.com

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Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#191

Post by zomiaen »

fps-hero wrote: post #89
vineyardmike wrote: post #9

Those 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…

Look to Australia if you want to see how these energy policies work out in the long run. Energy is big money. Anything that disrupts the status quo is immediately vilified. It got to the point that our major party at the time lead a “gas fired” green energy policy. They got voted out, the new guys implemented a subsidised home battery policy. In the space of a year it has destroyed the economics of a carbon fuelled g…

It's absurd how the propaganda against green energy on certain political spectrums essentially turned into, "It's all money/cash grab for green energy companies!"

As if the established industry has no incentive in the opposite direction? Everyone is going to act in their best interests in this system, that's how it's designed, the whole point of government is to mediate the system in the best interests of the whole.

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#192

Post by k33n »

vrganj wrote: post #81
simianwords wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The whole is nothing but the sum of specifics. The oceans are boiling [0], marine life is dying [1]. Land close to the water will be land under water soon [2]. The ice caps are melting and setting free all sorts of diseases. [3] Large parts of our planet on fire all the time now, here's one from Australia from this year [4], but I'm sure you've read about wildfires in Spain and France this year, Australia last year,…

[flagged]

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#193

Post by k33n »

s900mhz wrote: post #40
throwaway87411 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Communism dried up the third largest lake in the world just for irrigation (while starving tens of millions in the meantime).

No one mentioned communism?

The person you’re replying to did, when he pointed out that a communist regime wasted a ton of water.

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#194

Post by lokar »

jstummbillig wrote: post #12

Note 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.

Mostly because coal is more expensive and slower to build

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#195

Post by k33n »

octocop wrote: post #7

Bitcoin received a lot of backslash due to its power usage and ecological footprint. It's obvious that HN users don't have the same criticisms towards AI data centers. Maybe someone with a short position will coordinate that communication soon..

It’s worth noting that the ideological drive to create more energy-neutral crypto schemes resulted in trillions of dollars in fraud and no value created. Same as it always is with climate extremism. Always a cash grab.

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#196

Post by andsoitis »

kwdev wrote: post #183
andsoitis wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > Will my kids be an ethnic minority in their own country in the next generation - and if so, what's that going to be like for them? > What about this is an essential concern for you? Like, what are the potential harms? European countries take great care in maintaining and strengthening their traditions and cultural heritage. That would be at risk. Now, whether or not that actually matters or not is debatable, but…

This fear of "the others" that don't look like us or dare to have their own culture coming and "stealing" your cake has been used as a cheap distraction tactic for ages. It backfired for Germany, it's gonna backfire for the US. I really like this metaphor: A politician, a voter, and an immigrant are at a BBQ. There's 100 sausages on the grill. The politician goes up, takes 99 sausages, turns to the voter and says "qu…

Totally agree.

What do you think about all the money and energy that European countries spend on propping up their traditions and cultural heritage VS just letting it evolve "naturally" as demographics shift?

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#197

Post by DennisP »

andsoitis wrote: post #181
DennisP wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US has been the foundation of European security since the beginning of NATO. Now Europe has good reason to think that American security guarantees are no longer reliable, and the US president keeps threatening to invade a European country, while Russia fights a war of aggression nearby. If I were European then I guess I'd find this rather more worrying than brown people moving in, or the struggles of car companie…

> If I were European then I guess I'd find this rather more worrying than brown people moving in What does "brown people" mean? It seems like such a superficially racist characterization.

I assumed that was what the commenter above was talking about, but perhaps I'm wrong. From the little I know about it, most of the immigrants that right-wing Europeans complain about are from places to the south.

In case my understatement made things unclear, it's not the sort of thing I worry about at all.

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#198

Post by gruez »

dathinab wrote: post #190
gruez wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Using the age profile of a country with over a billion people to dismiss its geopolitical power has no credibility. The first two charts are for GDP, which correlates pretty well with geopolitical power. Moreover if we're going by population, wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers?

GDP is subtle broken in many ways A "in general" correlates with geopolitical power doesn't necessary mean you can point at a specific case look at their GDP and come to a good conclusion. Especially not if it's as much of a special case as China. > wouldn't that imply India, and then later Africa are going to be superpowers? which might actually happen. If the US falls further from grace and the situations stays lik…

So going by one statistic (GDP) is bad, but going by another (population) gets a pass because... China's "special"? I'm sorry, but that just sounds like a special pleading. I don't like this because it just turns arguments into a fact-free zone where objective facts don't matter and the only thing that does is handwavy vibes from either side. Is China going to be the dominant superpower? The supporters can handwave endlessly about robot armies and the superiority of an authoritarian political system. The detractors can handwave endlessly about the demographic crisis and the fragility of an authoritarian political system.

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#199

Post by andsoitis »

DennisP wrote: post #197
andsoitis wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were European then I guess I'd find this rather more worrying than brown people moving in What does "brown people" mean? It seems like such a superficially racist characterization.

I assumed that was what the commenter above was talking about, but perhaps I'm wrong. From the little I know about it, most of the immigrants that right-wing Europeans complain about are from places to the south. In case my understatement made things unclear, it's not the sort of thing I worry about at all.

> most of the immigrants.... are from places to the south.

and hence "brown"? What does that terminology even mean?

Re: New Amazon Data Center Is Set to Have the Most Polluting Power Plant in the U.S.

#200

Post by maxerickson »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #136
inigyou wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much water does a DC use?

The question is does DC building bring added costs to local communities. My small town has a backlog of home builders waiting for permits because of constrained municipal water capacity. We are still paying off the bonds for the last capacity we added. Golf courses/etc are already factored into current costs. Additional new use brings significant cost (bonds to build new capacity), funded by increasing expenses on th…

Given the political will, that problem is straightforward to address with the permitting.
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