Comment on Climate goals go up in smoke as US datacenters turn to coal
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
It doesn’t make any difference whether they use coal, nuclear, or renewables.
If they were using renewables the rest of us would need the coal generated power to keep the lights on.
Exactly, people don’t seem to realise that higher demand for energy means higher demand for all sources of energy including fussil fuels.
If doesn’t matter if this datacenter runs 100% on renewables if that means that the overall demand on the powergrid increases and now other clients that used to get (a higher percentage of) their power from renewable are getting it from coal, it’s just a green washing shift blame technique.
And the nuclear ?
You skipped it somehow.
you seem to have missed my point.
If humanity’s energy requirements without AI are x, and AI’s requirements are an additional y, then AI is reponsible for the worst energy sources up to the value of y.
I’m just pointing out the fact that you mention nuclear energy and then discarded it in your follow up.
What ?
I didn’t “discard” it, it’s just not a pertinent inclusion. I also didn’t mention geothermal power, or wheelbarrows.
It doesn’t matter what type of power is plugged into data centres. Turning them off would reduce coal power consumption.
JohnEdwa@sopuli.xyz 5 months ago
There’s one exception - when they are self-sufficient, or even net positive, with renewables.
One example is the Google datacenter in Hamina, Finland. They build it in an old unused paper mill, built their own solar farm, and they use the cooling loop for district heating for the city. That extra heat provides around 75% of the required heating, meaning the city could stop relying on their old natural gas heaters so now the district heating runs on renewables as well.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 months ago
I’ll begrudgingly concede that this is a good point.
Part of me wants to say “just force these assholes to build renewables without the datacentres” but I know that’s nonsensical.
I guess this is how carbon credit schemes are intended to work, but I’m aware that aside from a few specific cases carbon trading has just been a way to obfuscate carbon emissions.