Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 296 posts

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

#81

Post by vrganj »

simianwords wrote: post #24
vrganj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe is burning, rivers are at all time lows, new temperature records ar being set every year, oceans are rising and you have the gall to demand we ignore the obvious?

[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, California every year, Greece last year etc etc.

Rivers in Europe are at an all-time low [5], nuclear power plants need to shut down because they can't be cooled anymore. [6]

It takes deep ideological commitment to close ones eyes to the obvious.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/09/profound...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/09/profound...

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02299-w

[3] https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/could-microbes-l...

[4] https://phys.org/news/2026-01-australia-declares-state-disas...

[5] https://eu-space.europa.eu/components/earth-observation-cope...

[6] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn0nqv05g0do

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

#82

Post by lee_ars »

infecto wrote: post #53
lee_ars wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas specifically has heavily politicized and demonized wind power, in spite of having massive successes with it prior to 2016 and being a leading producer of it. Solar isn't as bad, but is still seen as "leftist." The political landscape in TX is vastly more friendly to natural gas. In other words, they are using gas turbines because the politicians are stupid.

[flagged]

[flagged]

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

#83

Post by infecto »

shakna wrote: post #60
xienze wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might want to download new anti-Texas talking points. Texas is number two in the nation in solar power: https://seia.org/media/16020/texas.pdf/ Texas is not at all against renewables. Maybe, just maybe, whatever axes the people building data centers are optimizing on rule out solar/wind over factors other than "renewables are for leftists, so fuck that we're gonna burn gas even if it's more expensive."

15th for non-residential? Sounds like people overwhelmingly put it on their roofs, and politicians avoid it.

Did you miss the 1st utility part? It can be quite hard for nonresidential users to retrofit for solar. Not impossible but sometimes not an easy solve.

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

#85

Post by lee_ars »

xienze wrote: post #43
lee_ars wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas specifically has heavily politicized and demonized wind power, in spite of having massive successes with it prior to 2016 and being a leading producer of it. Solar isn't as bad, but is still seen as "leftist." The political landscape in TX is vastly more friendly to natural gas. In other words, they are using gas turbines because the politicians are stupid.

I think you might want to download new anti-Texas talking points. Texas is number two in the nation in solar power: https://seia.org/media/16020/texas.pdf/ Texas is not at all against renewables. Maybe, just maybe, whatever axes the people building data centers are optimizing on rule out solar/wind over factors other than "renewables are for leftists, so fuck that we're gonna burn gas even if it's more expensive."

> I think you might want to download new anti-Texas talking points.

No need—the current ones are uploaded directly into my mailbox regularly by Randy Weber, my district rep.

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

#86

Post by firesteelrain »

inigyou wrote: post #70
firesteelrain wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also made solar inverters illegal last week. That’s overstating it. A couple clarifications. It banned foreign (edit) made equipment because it’s known for cybersecurity issues. It was the FCC that restricted new foreign-made connected inverters over grid cybersecurity concerns. [1] 1. https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-adds-foreign-produced-power... > This week, the US government paid a wind farm company $1.2 bil…

It banned all foreign made solar inverters i.e. all solar inverters.

That’s true. China dominates globally but I found that the US installed European and Japanese models. There is a big supply chain concern and set of reviews happening all across the entire government sector. Energy is a national security concern. [1]

1. https://www.energy.gov/cmei/systems/solar-photovoltaics-supp...

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

#87

Post by xnx »

Aren't coal power plants waaaay more polluting than natural gas? Not just in terms of C02, but also really nasty stuff like particulates, sulphur, and metals?

It's very trendy right now to get mad at datacenters, but I'd much rather energy come from natural gas than from an existing coal power plant. (Obviously, renewables would be better than either.)

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

#88

Post by amarcheschi »

stevesimmons wrote: post #67
t0mas88 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The overall American economy is going to pay the price in the long term. And current foreign policy is reducing trust in America as a reliable and stable partner, which will make things even worse.

Speaking as a European, current foreign policy is not "reducing trust in America as a reliable and stable partner". It has already reduced trust to rock bottom. It's hard to see how much worse it could get, short of outright invasion or allying with Russia. Just this week, amongst other news: * America's useless adventures in Iran have used up so many Patriot missiles there aren't any left to defend Kyiv against Russ…

I feel it is hard to grasp for an American how much perception of US shifted in eu. This is just anedoctal of course, but a famous Italian singer famous for having written a song about American and sexual liberation decades ago, wrote an updated version. The former is "America", the latter is "America INC." You can guess which one depicts America in a bad light.

I wouldn't have expected a famous singer to make such a song, given that America was always portrayed in italian pop music with a positive image, and negative views were relegated to mostly political groups or singers with political themes

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

#89

Post by fps-hero »

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 grid. All the economics pointing to renewables being the way forward were proven correct.

Everyone gets their back scratched. If you’re a consumer and you invested, you have a massively discounted personal power station that generates you money. If you operate the grid, your transmission costs and peak transmission costs went down. General consumer prices went down because of a reduction in peak electricity use driving up retail costs. Everyone in won.

Except big gas, who cannot turn a profit on a renewable success story. Don’t let rhetoric become your reality.

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

#90

Post by inigyou »

infecto wrote: post #80
hahahaa wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if..... the USA had a national grid and what if.... they connected solar and wind across the country and for kicks, invested in storage.

[flagged]

> Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit.
Post reply on HN