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. thayne · 1791153423 · focus · HN ↗

      My biggest problem with the data centers getting built around me are that they are building new natural gas power plants to power them, that will be greenhouse gases and decrease local air quality. I would be a lot more ok with it if they were using wind or solar. And maybe built it somewhere that didn't have a water shortage.

      1. cogman10 · 1791154841 · focus · HN ↗

         One being built near me is being built on public lands that are being sold off for datacenters. That's an additional pretty big negative (especially since the specific land was set apart as a wildlife habitat.)

         I do really dislike that AFAIK almost all of these are being powered via burning fossil fuels. Any way you slice it, it's going to mean that locals end up paying higher energy bills.

         1. SoftTalker · 1791157023 · focus · HN ↗

            I guess we can assume that the executives at the big AI companies don't believe in man made climate change.

            1. catlifeonmars · 1791157735 · focus · HN ↗

               A(G)I is supposed to fix everything so nothing matters /s

               1. foo12bar · 1791159542 · focus · HN ↗

                  Why is this sarcastic? Isn't this a plausible possibility?

                  1. sirtaj · 1791173654 · focus · HN ↗

                     We've been hearing some variant of "engineering will solve climate change when it becomes important enough, so we don't need to worry now" since the late 90s.

                     1. Marha01 · 1791175962 · focus · HN ↗

                        > We've been hearing some variant of "engineering will solve climate change when it becomes important enough, so we don't need to worry now" since the late 90s.

                        Well, it was true in the 90s, and it's still true today. Once climate change becomes important enough (that is, causing actual significant damage to important, wealthy countries), it takes just one such country to start a stratospheric aerosol injection project, or, if space launch costs become low enough, put a sunshade between Earth and the Sun. Such solutions have their own risks, of course. But if climate change really becomes bad, they will be tried. And from what I have read, they have a good change of succeeding.

                        1. sirtaj · 1791178298 · focus · HN ↗

                           It will still be true another 30 years from now perhaps, but nobody who has the actual funds to spend seems to care. If the world was actually taking it seriously, it would be dealt with like the ozone hole was. Instead, we're still debating whether it's real, and if it's real whether it's important, and if it's important whether it is more important than - I don't know - pretty much anything else.

                           What qualifies as a rich nation anyway? Europe seems pretty rich, and they're melting. One would think the time is now.

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