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Big Tech's A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone

nytimes.com

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Re: Big Tech's A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone

#41

Post by SR2Z »

taeric wrote: post #40
SR2Z wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PG&E charges about 50c per kWh. It's not very hard to have an electric bill that high when electricity costs ~5x the national average.

Ish? I'm still not clear where you would be using that much electricity. I'm not claiming that you don't. Or that you shouldn't. I'm genuinely curious on where the main use of electricity is. To add numbers, an AC can use up to 5000 watts. That is literally 10x a refrigerator. Over 100x what a TV uses. The car, I'd guess is using a lot. But where are you using that much energy without AC? That is, even compared to yo…

You get a $500 bill for using 1000 kWh/mo - that's just leaving a 5000W AC on for 200 hours. My apartment AC is probably 2000W, but similar principles apply.

Add in a fridge, cooking equipment, water heating, leaving a server on, etc., and it should be straightforward to get to that number.

Re: Big Tech's A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone

#42

Post by taeric »

SR2Z wrote: post #41
taeric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ish? I'm still not clear where you would be using that much electricity. I'm not claiming that you don't. Or that you shouldn't. I'm genuinely curious on where the main use of electricity is. To add numbers, an AC can use up to 5000 watts. That is literally 10x a refrigerator. Over 100x what a TV uses. The car, I'd guess is using a lot. But where are you using that much energy without AC? That is, even compared to yo…

You get a $500 bill for using 1000 kWh/mo - that's just leaving a 5000W AC on for 200 hours. My apartment AC is probably 2000W, but similar principles apply. Add in a fridge, cooking equipment, water heating, leaving a server on, etc., and it should be straightforward to get to that number.

None of this contends with my question? I get how an AC can lead to an expensive bill. I'm assuming your numbers are to intend running the AC for daytime hours and that it will get you there. How do you get there without an AC?

About the only other large power use thing I could think of would be a pool?

Searching also shows average power bills in CA are 160? If focused on LA, it would be 200ish? What is putting some folks here so far above average? Was that the quarterly bill? I know we get bills every few months.

Re: Big Tech's A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone

#43

Post by SR2Z »

taeric wrote: post #42
SR2Z wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get a $500 bill for using 1000 kWh/mo - that's just leaving a 5000W AC on for 200 hours. My apartment AC is probably 2000W, but similar principles apply. Add in a fridge, cooking equipment, water heating, leaving a server on, etc., and it should be straightforward to get to that number.

None of this contends with my question? I get how an AC can lead to an expensive bill. I'm assuming your numbers are to intend running the AC for daytime hours and that it will get you there. How do you get there without an AC? About the only other large power use thing I could think of would be a pool? Searching also shows average power bills in CA are 160? If focused on LA, it would be 200ish? What is putting some…

I don't think you get there without an AC, but the point is that many people have AC and central air and use both of them.

My guess is that most people don't have AC or are sensitive to price increases and choose not to run it. There's also multiple electricity providers in the state; NorCal uses PG&E and SoCal uses Edison.

For a variety of complicated and corruption-related reasons, PG&E has jacked rates through the roof in an absolutely unconscionable way and Edison's rates have only increased by a lot.

Re: Big Tech's A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone

#44

Post by taeric »

SR2Z wrote: post #43
taeric wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of this contends with my question? I get how an AC can lead to an expensive bill. I'm assuming your numbers are to intend running the AC for daytime hours and that it will get you there. How do you get there without an AC? About the only other large power use thing I could think of would be a pool? Searching also shows average power bills in CA are 160? If focused on LA, it would be 200ish? What is putting some…

I don't think you get there without an AC, but the point is that many people have AC and central air and use both of them. My guess is that most people don't have AC or are sensitive to price increases and choose not to run it. There's also multiple electricity providers in the state; NorCal uses PG&E and SoCal uses Edison. For a variety of complicated and corruption-related reasons, PG&E has jacked rates through the…

So it sounds like we mostly agree? One of the starter posts was claiming 450 without AC. I'm curious how that happens. Even with AC, I was never seeing bills that big unless we were running it a lot.

Re: Big Tech's A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone

#45

Post by arghwhat »

croes wrote: post #39
arghwhat wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And sunlight causes skin cancer, but we don't want to boycott neither water vapor nor sunlight lest we will have no precipitation and no... life. Water evaporates constantly in from soil, plants, and water bodies - most notably from the ocean itself, which is how ~babby~ precipitation is formed. Evaporation from a datacenter is unlikely to make any notable impact through water vapor. What it could impact is highly lo…

All the small things that affect the climate pile up. > Water evaporates constantly in from soil, plants, and water bodies - most notably from the ocean itself, which is how ~babby~ precipitation is formed. And CO2 is constantly released too. The point are the additional released greenhouse gases BTW we kind of boycott sunlight, it’s called sunscreen

That's really doesn't apply to water vapor where the natural evaporation is many orders if magnitude grater than what were dealing with, and is a required part of the natural cycle to replenish water reservoirs, with the natural cycle being incredibly short and increased evaporation shortening that cycle.

The issue with greenhouse gasses is their potent impact combined with long lifetime. CO2 has to be slowly absorbed by e.g. plants, and adding more does not speed up the process unlike for water vapor.

You also cannot evaporate past 100% relative humidity, an amount of water saturation that naturally occurs. This is unlike gas emissions, where the sky is the limit.

> BTW we kind of boycott sunlight, it’s called sunscreen

Unless you're applying it to the sun, that's not boycotting sunlight, it's adapting to it. Not to mention that your skin requires sunlight, sunscreen just avoids overexposure.

Re: Big Tech's A.I. Data Centers Are Driving Up Electricity Bills for Everyone

#46

Post by grafmax »

arghwhat wrote: post #17
rambojohnson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To say nothing of the exorbitant amount of water used to cool these machines, we’re on track to face a water shortage crisis long before any other climate change impact.

Water availability is a regional climate change impact, which does not apply everywhere due to differences in water sourcing and weather patterns and how climate change affects these. It's very stupid to evaporate potable water on purpose in dry regions, but note that many numbers in this area are highly sensationalized by taking e.g. the maximum design capacity of the cooling system instead of the actual load, and t…

Many of the reports are not sensationalized, but based on the companies’ own reporting of water usage. Water is preferred for cooling the dense data centers needed for AI - other methods are inadequate. And 2/3rds of new data centers in the US are built in water-stressed areas.

While some reports may be sensationalized we deceive ourselves if we conclude that the water scarcity problem as a mirage. It’s a real problem.

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