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The fact that there is a learning effect doesn't mean it's good to consume more electricity. If you want to argue positive sum, you would need to show a the con

The fact that there is a learning effect doesn't mean it's good to consume more electricity. If you want to argue positive sum, you would need to show a the consumed green electricity displaces more than the equivalent amount of fossil electricity plus co2 fp of measures used to handle variability of renewables vs nearly flat demand from data centers. Which seems hard.

random314 5y ago
I mean we might as well shut down electricity to all of our homes if we want to make this argument. And we could argue with each other over snail mail. But I suspect that will actually be worse from CO2 emissions perspective.
- fulafel 5y ago
  That's strawman, some electricity use is needed because we depend on it for survival and the rest is various levels of nice to have. But its use has environmental costs and we are in big trouble with climate change. As long as there is fossil made electricity flowing in the grid, marginal changes in demand can be viewed as contributing to its production, because electricity is fungible (modulo transmission considerations).
  - random314 5y ago
    That's a fat big POV that very few will take seriously. Being carbon neutral absolutely incentivizes green energy. Making up a wall of insurmountable demands that very few people in this world, except hunter gatherers, can possibly meet does not help but hurts efforts towards CO2 reduction. Carbon neutrality works by subsidizing the costs of reducing carbon emissions at source. Trying to shit on that makes you regressive, not progressive.
    - fulafel 5y ago
      Let's not get too emotional about things and keep to the HN guidelines. I do understand and somewhat agree with the "perfect is the enemy of good" thinking, but it's still good to be aware and keep outselves honest about the difference between them. The marginal CO2 perspective is in fact an establilished thing in the industry, see eg [1] [2]. Regarding "insurmountable demands", not sure what you're referring to here, the discussion was about whether there are significant indirect co2 & environmental costs to "carbon neutral" electricity as defined by Google, which I argued there are. [1] https://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/marginal-carbon-dioxide-production-rates-of-the-nw-power-systemdraft-for-comment https://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/marginal-carbon-dioxide-pro... [2] https://www.tmrow.com/blog/marginal-carbon-intensity-of-electricity-with-machine-learning/ https://www.tmrow.com/blog/marginal-carbon-intensity-of-elec...

random314 5y ago

I mean we might as well shut down electricity to all of our homes if we want to make this argument. And we could argue with each other over snail mail. But I suspect that will actually be worse from CO2 emissions perspective.

fulafel 5y ago
That's strawman, some electricity use is needed because we depend on it for survival and the rest is various levels of nice to have. But its use has environmental costs and we are in big trouble with climate change. As long as there is fossil made electricity flowing in the grid, marginal changes in demand can be viewed as contributing to its production, because electricity is fungible (modulo transmission considerations).
- random314 5y ago
  That's a fat big POV that very few will take seriously. Being carbon neutral absolutely incentivizes green energy. Making up a wall of insurmountable demands that very few people in this world, except hunter gatherers, can possibly meet does not help but hurts efforts towards CO2 reduction. Carbon neutrality works by subsidizing the costs of reducing carbon emissions at source. Trying to shit on that makes you regressive, not progressive.
  - fulafel 5y ago
    Let's not get too emotional about things and keep to the HN guidelines. I do understand and somewhat agree with the "perfect is the enemy of good" thinking, but it's still good to be aware and keep outselves honest about the difference between them. The marginal CO2 perspective is in fact an establilished thing in the industry, see eg [1] [2]. Regarding "insurmountable demands", not sure what you're referring to here, the discussion was about whether there are significant indirect co2 & environmental costs to "carbon neutral" electricity as defined by Google, which I argued there are. [1] https://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/marginal-carbon-dioxide-production-rates-of-the-nw-power-systemdraft-for-comment https://www.nwcouncil.org/energy/marginal-carbon-dioxide-pro... [2] https://www.tmrow.com/blog/marginal-carbon-intensity-of-electricity-with-machine-learning/ https://www.tmrow.com/blog/marginal-carbon-intensity-of-elec...