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Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
41–50 of 73 posts
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#42Given how wildly profitable they are, we should be passing laws that they must produce X % of their power needs from renewable sources, where X approaches 100%. This would be a jobs program that would also help the planet. Win win. Investors would make slightly less money in the short term, but our grandchildren will be able to live. I think that is a good trade off.
Google, Microsoft and others are directly buying electricity from nuclear and renewable sources, doing some major greenwashing this way. https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpow... By doing that they force all the others to rely on the "other" sources (gas, coal...) and not replace fast enough those ones with clean sources. The production is physically limited, if you have the money and power to b…
> The production is physically limited, if you have the money and power to be green, the others are not and you can seriously slow down the transition.
This doesn't make sense. If big players are eating up all the renewable sources, then the renewable sources are making money hand over fist and are encouraged to expand. The market forces should speed up overall production of renewables, not slow it down.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
> production is physically limited By what? We could easily sustain higher production rates for solar, wind and nuclear. The constraints are mainly bureaucratic. > prefer that those nuclear plans and renewable farms are used for better purposes as hospitals, industries, homes How do you aim to pay for them?
>How do you aim to pay for them? They should raise taxes, especially for large coorparations and in higher income brackets.
> should raise taxes, especially for large coorparations and in higher income brackets
Google and Microsoft are large corporations. Their employees and investors are high income. OP proposes curtailing their growth. That reduces those taxes. That’s why OP’s suggestion is a false economy.
Energy, in this context, isn’t a zero sum game. Tax Google and Microsoft more and use that to pay for more power.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google, Microsoft and others are directly buying electricity from nuclear and renewable sources, doing some major greenwashing this way. https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpow... By doing that they force all the others to rely on the "other" sources (gas, coal...) and not replace fast enough those ones with clean sources. The production is physically limited, if you have the money and power to b…
Why does it matter whether e.g. a hospital runs on renewable energy or not? Why is "industry" good but "data centers" are bad? If some companies care enough about their image to pay extra to buy green energy, that's good! It makes that production more profitable, and encourages more such production to be built faster. Why are you trying to disincentivize that with "greenwashing" slurs?
Because the global goal of all that is the CO2 emissions that we emit __today__.
I'm perfectly fine that we start big plans to build many new nuclear and renewable plants, but __today__ we need to emit less CO2, now. CO2 just add up in the atmosphere and don't degrade in the time we have.
SO, in the quota we need to respect, I prefer to ensure that the today capacity we have of "clean energy" are used for a proper usage better than allocating the current clean, and upcoming clean ones to some Google servers that are used to generate AI images for fun.
If your house is on fire you don't use the water you have to fill up your pool, you actually need to turn off the fire, even if you will have more water soon.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#45Personally, I'm not much concerned about their energy consumption per se but rather by their energy mix. I would be more than fine if they had all their energy sourced from solar panels and wind turbines.
Since electricity is fungible at the continent scale, it only makes sense to look at the energy mix of society at large. Google could pay a premium to buy only renewable energy from the grid and have an impressive 100% green energy mix, simply displacing emission to the rest of us.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#46Personally, I'm not much concerned about their energy consumption per se but rather by their energy mix. I would be more than fine if they had all their energy sourced from solar panels and wind turbines.
Since electricity is fungible at the continent scale, it only makes sense to look at the energy mix of society at large. Google could pay a premium to buy only renewable energy from the grid and have an impressive 100% green energy mix, simply displacing emission to the rest of us.
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Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#47Given how wildly profitable they are, we should be passing laws that they must produce X % of their power needs from renewable sources, where X approaches 100%. This would be a jobs program that would also help the planet. Win win. Investors would make slightly less money in the short term, but our grandchildren will be able to live. I think that is a good trade off.
It is ridiculous to place these demands on energy consumers. Microsoft and Google aren't operating heir own powerplants to generate energy in the quantities they need (some other companies, e.g. VW partially do), for that they are relying on other companies, which sell them their energy.
If and only if those other companies are able and willing to produce the required energy mix, then the desired mix used downstream can be achieved. Obviously the only organizations which can make such a change are energy providers.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#48"Fairly big countries" is such a cop out. What do you mean by big? Population? Economy? Energy consumption?
The original twitter post just says "More electricity than many countries". The fact that Google and Microsoft consume the same order magnitude of electricity as Nigeria (population 220 million), Ireland (population 5 million), Ecuador (18 million), Slovakia (5 million), Iceland (population 0.4 million), really just speaks the vast inequality in the world, even amongst countries.
It's interesting and relevant that Microsoft and Google are now "country scale", in terms of energy production. But when you realize that US energy consumption in 2023 was 4000TWh (MS and Google apparently each used 24), you realize just how non-serious this comparison is. The comparison can be thought provoking, but the actual results aren't particularly meaningful.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it matter whether e.g. a hospital runs on renewable energy or not? Why is "industry" good but "data centers" are bad? If some companies care enough about their image to pay extra to buy green energy, that's good! It makes that production more profitable, and encourages more such production to be built faster. Why are you trying to disincentivize that with "greenwashing" slurs?
Because the global goal of all that is the CO2 emissions that we emit __today__. I'm perfectly fine that we start big plans to build many new nuclear and renewable plants, but __today__ we need to emit less CO2, now. CO2 just add up in the atmosphere and don't degrade in the time we have. SO, in the quota we need to respect, I prefer to ensure that the today capacity we have of "clean energy" are used for a proper us…
> prefer to ensure that the today capacity we have of "clean energy" are used for a proper usage better than allocating the current clean, and upcoming clean ones to some Google servers that are used to generate AI images for fun
You’re proposing capping economic growth to save the planet. Admirable. But with tremendous, almost guaranteed, capacity for backlash.
Empirically, growing economies green faster because while we should treat climate change as an existential crisis, we don’t, we treat it as a luxury.
> If your house is on fire you don't use the water you have to fill up your pool, you actually need to turn off the fire, even if you will have more water soon
The house isn’t on fire. It’s settling wrong. It won’t burn us in minutes but bury us in decades. The analogy is in quitting your job to start repairs even though you don’t have the cash on hand to finish them.
Re: Google and Microsoft now each consume more power than some fairly big countries
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
He meant a nice life
In fact, they will likely be able to live a better life if everyone was free to choose an energy source that makes economical sense to them.
> if everyone was free to choose an energy source that makes economical sense to them
This ignores externalities.