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Comment by squarefoot | Hacker News Reader

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So if you built your fortune on IT running in datacenters which consume magnitutes more energy to feed your customers; or else - if your business is about delivering stuff with 1000s of vehicles regularly being wasted... Tell me, at what point you start giving a damn about environment, and what pollution are we talking about at all?

Sorry, but HN is full of people who made fortunes not giving major fucks about lots of rules. Not being one of them, I still find it perfectly appropriate to see this article and appreciate it here precisely, and not on... CNN or DW.

You may go ask "Founder mode" whether he can dever be blamed into "not giving a damn", considering his caring character towards all humanity.

One thing I agree - nobody cares if a Porsche is putting a 0.00001 KG of CO2 out now and then, as its aesthetic value is much much higher.

That's a flawed analogy. Datacenter draw X power to do X work, and people using them don't care about the brand or aesthetics. Give techies and companies less power hungry alternatives and look how quick they will migrate. That is quite different for cars, unless their perceived value has nothing to do with their #1 function, which brings us back to my post: most people buying luxury cars give more importance to appearance rather than any environmental issue. I completely understand, but cannot agree.

It’s a ridiculous argument. You are typing this comment just because this damn not environmental friendly data center exists. But you pay nothing for HN. Hence someone’s do. That maybe this damn dude who made a fortune. But more than that, this dude has had to work hard long ago so that the data Center could be built and some nerds have got their jobs.

Telling people why they do things is 1) bad wording; 2) puts them in defense mode; 3) projection; 4) etc.. you name it not OK.

I pay nothing to HN, but HN exists thanks to lotta money moved around by people running HN. What are you telling me now, that HN would not emerge in some other form, had it not been for Founder Mode to showcase Algolia's search? Sorry, I doubt that it is how society evolves. HN can emerge from anybody persistent enough to go forward with it.

Slashdot, Craigslist, Reddit and 4chan if you want are very apparent examples of how smart people fill in when they have the chance. HN may well disappear very soon, I would miss all the smart voices, but I won't miss HN itself and the fair amount of very obnoxious people who tell others 'how they should feel, or felt'.

I’m not sure what your point is. The comment you’re replying to never argued that this data center is unnecessary. Both prestigious cars and data centers are necessarily evil. Just for different audiences.

Lol, I really want to see a 150-year old EURO6 200kw diesel engine coupled with a 150-year old 9-speed automatic dual-clutch allowing me to drive on the 150-year old roads for 4 liters per 100 km at German highway speeds.

BTW, electric cars are older technology than ICE cars.

The main innovation in modern electric cars isn't just about swapping fuel with electricity, but eliminating all junk in between that wasted power only to overcome ICE inherent flaws. More simple electronics aside, clutch, gearbox, then driveshaft are all gone, and they contributed to a huge waste of power, which burned a lot of fuel for nothing. This is so bad that where possible and economically feasible (trains and ships) they use mixed diesel-electric pairs with the diesel engine working as generator so that it would always run at maximum torque not being forced to start from zero rpm and not having its speed related with train and ship speed. The electric engine is indeed older than internal combustion one, however what makes it a better option also for cars required modern development, especially in batteries and rare earth magnets which would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago.

> clutch, gearbox, then driveshaft are all gone, and they contributed to a huge waste of power which burned a lot of fuel for nothing.

Practically, they are replaced by even more "junk" in the form of literal tons of batteries weighing more than the part they replaced, the electric motor having to expend more energy to carry this extra weight around..

> what makes it a better option also for cars required modern development, especially in batteries and rare earth magnets which would have been unthinkable only a few decades ago.

Is it, though? I'd like hard facts on that. From what I can find, battery chemistry hasn't seen any breakthrough, only their cost has steadily decreased, in large parts thanks to economies of scale and an oversight for externalities mostly in the extraction and refining supply chain. Similarly, high efficiency electric motors have been a solved problem for a century. I think the whole charger infrastructure and finally getting to the end of the chicken and egg conundrum has more to do with EVs becoming a thing than some new tech having enabled it.

That's not entirely true, most electric cars sold today have a driveshaft, clutch and gearbox.

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