Thread

1. aliasxneo · 1791145670 · focus · HN ↗

   I lived in a smaller rural town near a Google datacenter. During my career there I had routinely come across some outlandish accusations made about our water/power usage from the locals. But for obvious reasons I could never dispute them. I remember we hired a local who'd grown up in the town and he was "really surprised" when he started to see what we were doing to remain efficient.

   The current data center craze just feels like the same thing but on a bigger scale.

   1. pj_mukh · 1791149527 · focus · HN ↗

      Along those lines just a reminder folks, China is installing about 1GW equivalent of Solar power per day [1]. Lot of Australians can simply stop paying for power now due to free power on offer and batteries [2]. These are not zero-regulation, socialist wastelands.

      All this whinging about "is this project using too much power or not" is pointless scarcity that we've chosen to partake in. If we are to create and spend political capital via hyper-focussing on a single issue, perhaps we should use it to fix this instead?

      [1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reneweconomy.com.au&#x2F;just-staggering-china-installs-100-solar-panels-a-second-as-total-pv-capacity-tops-1-terawatt&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reneweconomy.com.au&#x2F;just-staggering-china-installs-1...

      [2]:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.energy.gov.au&#x2F;rebates&#x2F;solar-sharer-offer" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.energy.gov.au&#x2F;rebates&#x2F;solar-sharer-offer

      1. WatchDog · 1791156166 · focus · HN ↗

         &gt; Lot of Australians can simply stop paying for power now due to free power on offer and batteries

         This is overstating things.

         Even if you only draw power during these three hours of the day, you still need to pay a daily supply charge, which makes up about 30%(and growing) of the average household electricity bill.

         You would need about a 15 kWh battery to cover your household usage outside of these three hours.

         A 13.5kWh Tesla battery system will cost about $15k installed, the taxpayer will cover about 30% of the battery cost(exc installation), which brings it down closer to $11k.

         If you live an an owner occupied detached house(about 50% of Australian households), and you can afford a ~$11,000 for a battery, then you can probably pay off the battery within about 10 years.

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