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. cogman10 · 1791165094 · focus · HN ↗

                     There's not.

                     The first problem, in order to reverse a chemical reaction, you need to provide at least the offsetting released energy of the initial reaction. That means for CO2 you need to provide at least as much energy as was released when the carbon oxidized in the first place.

                     The second problem is that the CO2 is diluted in the atmosphere. Consider the amount of energy needed to remove salt from ocean water, it's not simple.

                     It just takes a lot of energy to that what was done by burning fossils in the first place.

                     1. Marha01 · 1791176109 · focus · HN ↗

                        > The first problem, in order to reverse a chemical reaction, you need to provide at least the offsetting released energy of the initial reaction. That means for CO2 you need to provide at least as much energy as was released when the carbon oxidized in the first place.

                        This is only a problem if AI won't develop cheap carbon neutral energy sources, like fusion or advanced fission, or more efficient solar with cheap grid-scale batteries.

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