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EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

epa.gov

81–90 of 261 posts

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#81
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing more carbon dioxide sources is going to be distinctly harmful to profits in the mid-term. As with racial bias, strict gender roles, anti-vaxxing, and being anti-science, being pro-carbon burn is ultimately a foolish anti-truth stance as silly and ill-outcomed as any three year old insisting that they can stay up all night.

Do the octogenarians in power not remember when they couldn’t breathe because of the lead in the gas in the 60s and the lack of emissions controls on everything? Do they yearn for the mines and coal dust of early industrial England? Everybody loves clean air and water but apparently forget why they have it in the first place.

They’ll be dead by the time it gets worse again

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are already plenty of people that don't like the EPA. Rich assholes who are upset they can't throw their trash on the ground. Anyone else is parroting propaganda generated by said rich assholes.

>Rich assholes who are upset they can't throw their trash on the ground. Anyone else is parroting propaganda generated by said rich assholes. Yeah, that guy who owns a liquor store on 7-mil and can't make the $100k underground stormwater treatment it would take to pave his dirt parking lot pencil out and that city in the rust belt who saw a major manufacturer pack up and leave for a desert state because environmental…

Framing Trump/MAGA as some kind of divine retribution against the sins of liberals great! All bad things are caused by liberals, because MAGA is mere reaction to their actions. MAGA have no mind of their own, and thus no responsibility for their own actions.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#83

> Clean Air Act (CAA) Acid Rain Program (ARP) does not apply to power generation facilities that are not connected to a public electricity grid, commonly referred to as “islanded” power generation facilities. This of course makes no sense whatever, as whether or not a power generator is connected to the grid has nothing to do with its environmental impact.

I think its so that like people don't need to do an EPA assessment for their home backup generator right? They are very common where I live due to the instability of the power grid.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#84

> Clean Air Act (CAA) Acid Rain Program (ARP) does not apply to power generation facilities that are not connected to a public electricity grid, commonly referred to as “islanded” power generation facilities. This of course makes no sense whatever, as whether or not a power generator is connected to the grid has nothing to do with its environmental impact.

It does make some sense. There are some semi-reasonable scenarios where not that much power is needed and you use electricity.

Still they make no sense with data centres and there should be reasonably sensible name plate capacity on it.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#85

> Clean Air Act (CAA) Acid Rain Program (ARP) does not apply to power generation facilities that are not connected to a public electricity grid, commonly referred to as “islanded” power generation facilities. This of course makes no sense whatever, as whether or not a power generator is connected to the grid has nothing to do with its environmental impact.

You are being confused by the names. A general name doesn't mean it is a general law that applies to everyone.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#86

There are big benefits to having power generation grid connected. It is more reliable (due to many possible generation sources). It is more eco-friendly (solar in daytime, wind when the wind blows). It is more cost efficient (no need to overbuild for peak usage, generators don't sit idle when computers are off for maintenance). Yet our electricity grid has such a mass of regulations attached that people are choosing…

> It is more cost efficient

Depends. Getting a grid connection, and all the equipment to connect and step down with negotiating prices is not always fun. Especially as there is a limited amount of power on the grid. its not a free lunch and takes time.

Its far easier to just slap shitty local generators on and live off the crappy noisy electricity they provide.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#87
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go research the green house gas emission projections for the end of Biden's term and the projections for Trump's administration. Hand-waving dismissiveness doesn't serve when there were, in fact, significant (and yet not sufficient) efforts written into law. We can have better things, but we as a people certainly need to do better. There are Mamdanis and there are Trumps. There's a difference.

Okay? That has nothing to do with what I said, what about the Biden admin helping run cover for the Gaza genocide? Was that not a case of putting profits, the military industrial complex, above people? What about when Clinton signed NAFTA and condemned swaths of the US to poverty (rustbelt is not a term of endearment)? I mean this country's founding document had carveouts for slavers and some of the first laws signed…

Whataboutism works a lot better if you don't literally start sentences with "what about..."

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#88
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of what you say is true to real life

AI is making working from home much easier than ever before. You don't really need to live in a city to have a tech career now, and it will accelerate. We don't really need so many office workers going forward in cities. Almost anything they decide to do instead, will more productive in the economy than being a useless cubicle monkey thats no longer needed because AI can do it better.

ok, but if AI is doing it better, then they won't be working remote, they'd be just unemployed.

Re: EPA says power for data centers can sidestep pollution laws

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do the octogenarians in power not remember when they couldn’t breathe because of the lead in the gas in the 60s and the lack of emissions controls on everything? Do they yearn for the mines and coal dust of early industrial England? Everybody loves clean air and water but apparently forget why they have it in the first place.

> Do the octogenarians in power not remember when they couldn’t breathe because of the lead in the gas Lead causes brain damage and memory impairment...

...and lead was standardized only because it was patentable. Otherwise ethanol was enough to achieve the same thing.

Brought you proudly by Thomas Midgley, Jr., who solved science problems by making bigger ones.

- https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/thomas-midgley-and-t...

- https://www.ehn.org/thomas-midgley-jr-lead-poisoning

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