221–230 of 273 posts
Are there public-facing data on the total energy footprint of an Amazon/Google/etc datacenter, including the lifecycle of the hardware hosted there?
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Yes, it is leading edge and admirable. I applaud the effort but question the headline. A Google datacenter near the Columbia River may derive 100% of it's energy from hydro. Google pioneered that practice and many others followed. But their overall real estate footprint relies heavily on local energy suppliers, which may be coal. Any company making a claim of being 100% renewable, is basically just using offsets. And…
Ok, I can see your argument, let me repeat it back to see if I got it right. You argue that by being physically near the Columbia river, a hydro electric plant can be constructed which generates power and sends it directly to a Google data center. But their other properties, some of which are nearer power plants which generate power using fossil fuels can not be considered to be using renewable energy. Is that about…
Frankly I don't think anyone should. It's mental gymnastics to be able to say you aren't using dirty energy when you really are.
Let me illustrate with an example of why you can't get by with 'offsets'.
Let's say Arizona is running on 80 GW natural gas and 20 GW solar. Google wants to build in Virginia, which relies heavily on coal.
So they bring online a 2 GW datacenter in Virginia which is powered by a 2 GW increase in coal burning. They "offset" it by building 2 GW of solar in Arizona, which scales back natural gas by 2 GW.
The result of their 'clean offset' has been the conversion of 2 GW natural gas to 2 GW of coal, which is significantly worse for the environment.
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Ok, I can see your argument, let me repeat it back to see if I got it right. You argue that by being physically near the Columbia river, a hydro electric plant can be constructed which generates power and sends it directly to a Google data center. But their other properties, some of which are nearer power plants which generate power using fossil fuels can not be considered to be using renewable energy. Is that about…
> I'm guessing from your argument that you do not. Frankly I don't think anyone should. It's mental gymnastics to be able to say you aren't using dirty energy when you really are. Let me illustrate with an example of why you can't get by with 'offsets'. Let's say Arizona is running on 80 GW natural gas and 20 GW solar. Google wants to build in Virginia, which relies heavily on coal. So they bring online a 2 GW datace…
Would it help if the renewable source had to be connected to the same grid-tie (there are 4 I think in the US) ? Then you're putting renewable energy into the same grid you are pulling it out of.
What if your solar plant in Arizona use the Fischer–Tropsch to make fuel, then you drove it in a tanker across the country and poured it into generators in Virginia?
The way I see it is that watts are watts (just like dollars are dollars) so if the total watts you burn are offset by renewable watts you have put in, then you are ahead. If everyone does that then by definition the entire grid is running on renewable energy.
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They have billions but aren't sponsoring scholarships for graduate physics degrees like Boeing or any "corporate" company does. If they want to see their 10xs breakthroughs (which they sure talk a lot about) they should be throwing money at condensed matter physics research and just support in general for physics. Its easy to get a 10x in software but energy is a whole different game. That way the smartest people won…
high paying code writing or going into physics/engineering. Engineering is much different than software architecture. One requires hard sciences competency, whereas one you can go into for years with none, and be successful.
Without the support and money from companies who care, many will choose the highest paying option
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You do realize in the event of a grid failure your solar panels don't work? You can either be grid tied or off grid.
Doesn't a battery give you some leeway to swap freely between buying/selling electricity off the grid and running-off-grid-from-battery?
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> I'm guessing from your argument that you do not. Frankly I don't think anyone should. It's mental gymnastics to be able to say you aren't using dirty energy when you really are. Let me illustrate with an example of why you can't get by with 'offsets'. Let's say Arizona is running on 80 GW natural gas and 20 GW solar. Google wants to build in Virginia, which relies heavily on coal. So they bring online a 2 GW datace…
I see what you're saying, but to me trying to phrase it in that way seems more like mental gymnastics than actual double entry accounting in watts. Would it help if the renewable source had to be connected to the same grid-tie (there are 4 I think in the US) ? Then you're putting renewable energy into the same grid you are pulling it out of. What if your solar plant in Arizona use the Fischer–Tropsch to make fuel, th…
Right, but they aren't connected to the same grid. Google has datacenters all over the world, connected to all sorts of different grids with different source compositions.
>What if your solar plant in Arizona use the Fischer–Tropsch to make fuel, then you drove it in a tanker across the country and poured it into generators in Virginia?
Sure, but you have to account for the emissions from that whole process as well (emissions of solar + emissions of generating the fuel + emissions of transportation + emissions of burning the fuel).
>The way I see it is that watts are watts (just like dollars are dollars)
Nope, a watt generated on one grid does not spend on another because they're not all interconnected.
Until we solve the energy storage problem, the problem is exacerbated further by continually expanding solar installations in one particular region of the US that will generate more than the consumption for part of the day.
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My thoughts exactly :) It's not like "politics" has the same impact that the latest season of Game of Thrones has, or the latest Futball results. Law and government define how businesses can operate, and public sentiment for or against a cause can make a company look good or bad and thus garner regulatory scrutiny or passivity.
Hilarious that pointing out to techbros that a political story is political gets you flagged and killed. More indication that what HN means by "politics" is "anything techbros don't like thinking about".
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The problem is that Google's claim is deceptive. What they are doing is great.
Paragraphs 3, 4, and 5 of the NYT article look accurate to me. I have a hard time seeing how anyone who read the article would be deceived.
Google is still using dirty energy, they are just offsetting it by returning extra to the grid when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.
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In Houston, the "Oil and Gas Capital of the World", I buy 100% wind power from Green Mountain. They're not the only game in town for 100% renewables, either. Green Mountain themselves do have mixed plans, but mine's 100% wind. It's not the cheapest power in town (some retail electric providers go below $0.04 per kWh for the first year of your contract or such if you don't care) but with Texas by law having a competit…
I have a hard time believing this. What does Green Mountain use when the wind dies? Do they have a grid storage solution?