So you’re saying we could significantly cut energy use globally by limiting data center build outs?
1.5% is a //huge// amount. If it was a “drop” in your bucket, it would only hold 67 more of those drops.
1.5% is a //huge// amount. If it was a “drop” in your bucket, it would only hold 67 more of those drops.
0.5% is about the entire energy consumption of two Swedens or half a Thailand.
In fact, I'm unaware of any new AI data center also being built with 0 carbon generation. Do you have a source?
The problem is not that we are building more things that use electricity, the problem is that we are generating electricity using fossil fuels. We should have phased out fossil fuels decades ago yet here we are ramping it up while everyone's bickering about inconsequential bullshit like datacenters.
Datacenters are not the problem. Construction is not the problem (except concrete which generates huge emissions but we can't really do much about that). Some things are infinitely easier to fix than others. Power generation is such a thing. We have the solution, we've had it for like a century (nuclear) and we're getting even more solutions.
We could run all power production with hardly any fossil fuels if we really wanted, nearly all land transport could be electric. These two changes alone would eliminate the vast majority of emissions. And we can do that, it's realistically possible.
We could also probably run global shipping and aviation on non-fossil fuels if we really wanted to, though I don't really know anything about that. There are large scale mining excavators, dozers and trucks running on electricity, and hybrid solutions.
Stop bickering about the small stuff. The only thing we should be focused on is transitioning all electricity production to green as fast as possible. That takes care of almost half of all emissions by itself and opens up lots of opportunities for solving other problems without emissions. For example we could use green energy to produce hydrogen from water, or biogas, ethanol etc, and then we'd have emission-free fuels we could use where combustion engines are still necessary.
But no let's just bicker about data centers and other inconsequential shit while the world ends.
Ohhh, carbon neutral energy generation, if only we could use that to replace the non-neutral energy sources, instead of using it to power virtual X-Ray goggles so MAGA incels can goon at "naked Taylor Swift". Or to answer "please do my work for me" of lazy fucks planet-wide. You know, to stay relevant to the comment thread of "Oceans hit highest temperature on record"...
AI cannot magically make engines more efficient or CO2 not a greenhouse gas.
That's plainly false, as that's just not how markets work over the long term. We only see distortions like this iver the short term due to investor subsidies.
Can you point me to my earlier argument (the time marks are individual comment URLs)
No, we couldn't, because degrowth solutions aren't really an option.
You really think you're going to convince people to become poorer? Not possible in a democracy. It'd require some kind of ecofascist totalitarian thing where you take peoples' energy and resource use away and fire tear gas and rubber bullets at them when they protest.
Or we could build non-carbon-based energy sources. Cause we have those, and they work. You can also have safe sex if you put a rubber thing on your wing-wong.
That’s correct and eventually that will have to happen. There aren’t much other actual options. It’s mostly a question of how long that can be avoided. We developed a system that blocked us in the current local optimum, with no ways to take the drastic actions we need to handle global issues like climate change.
(And to be clear, an ecofascist regime would be horrible to live under)