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Comment by teabee89 | Hacker News Reader

Dematerialization is the biggest fallacy in the industry. Data centers need energy to run. Buying the latest servers, network equipments, iPhones and more every year or two, requires an enormous amount of energy. GDP is directly correlated with energy, so there is no sign of change: an economy cannot grow without energy. I wish more people understood the economy from a physics standpoint.

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The term you're looking for is "energy intensity". And, indeed, it's going down: https://www.google.com/search?q=energy+intensity&client=safa...:

We're deriving more useful output with less or at least flattening (material and energy) input.

I wish more people understood economics from an economics standpoint.

I know about energy intensity, and yes it is going down, but not by enough to compensate the growth of consumption, which is the fallacy i'm pointing out. It has another name: Jevons paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

But the point McAfee is trying to do is that it requires less materials to do so. Yeah, energy consumption is on the rise, but instead of burning xx tons of coals to generate 1GWh like it did 50 years ago, it does so by using 10% of that coal. Advances in technologies allowed us to do that. In plus you cannot deny we do have a momentum to use more and more technologies involved in renewable then in fossils. I agree we are not quite there yet, but is way better then it was in the late 80's, beginning of 90's when the ozone layer hole was at its biggest.

Also why I believe nuclear power must play a vital role in carbon neutral power generation. Wind and solar is great for homes, but what else can power the steel industry? The duty cycle is enormous.

Steel and aluminium manufacturing actually are somewhat well-situated to make use of solar and wind power. The energy-intensive processes (i. e. heating metal until it melts) has somewhat flexible timing. So you can heat it up when energy supply is plenty or other demand is low and smooth out the grid.

And nuclear energy is simply too expensive. I know it hurts that some people were maybe too afraid of it in the past, but that's no longer the argument. It loses not just to un-subsidised wind and solar now, but even to natural gas + planting trees to offset carbon.

In theory battery tech can fuel Industry, though the ironic chicken-and-egg of the situation should be clear. Obviously we should invest in updated, safer, more efficient nuclear tech, but the public image is so bad that we might as well use coal and spend extra money on carbon capture

Energy != Stuff. Renewable sources are rising. We'll be OK.

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