7 ms·

I live near the Columbia River where Google, Facebook, Microsoft all have data centers that rely on hydroelectric power. The dams produce clean energy, provide

• golemotron 5y ago
  Consumption really can lead to the development of clean energy sources. People need to develop a growth-mindset on this issue.
  • Ar-Curunir 5y ago
    This logic is really no different from stupid Bitcoiner logic that PoW induces demand for cheap clean energy.
    • tejohnso 5y ago
      Doesn't civilization itself induce demand for cheap clean energy given the environmental forcing of unclean energy? I don't see why the bitcoin case needs to be singled out any more than the yacht, private jet, gaming rig, or hell...even personal car cases.
      • golemotron 5y ago
        Or even "the cloud."
      • giantrobot 5y ago
        > I don't see why the bitcoin case needs to be singled out any more than the yacht, private jet, gaming rig, or hell...even personal car cases. Because Bitcoin literally is designed to waste electricity on proof of work. The Ethereum network has the processing power of a Raspberry Pi and wastes fantastic amounts of electricity to deliver that paltry power. Bitcoin alone uses more power than all of Google's operations. I doubt that the total power used by the world's yachts and private jets per year is even half the power the Bitcoin network literally wastes.
        • floatboth 5y ago
          Even worse: Bitcoin alone uses as much as the datacenter sector as a whole, not just Google.
          • deleted 5y ago
            [deleted]
        • exit 5y ago
          energy is not wasted by proof of work, it is valuably expended to achieve the immutability of the ledger
          • giantrobot 5y ago
            Sorry, this is Poe's Law territory. I honestly can't tell if you're being sarcastic. A blockchain doesn't need some wasteful mechanism to be immutable. Boring old cryptographic signing does the same thing. But Bitcoin et al want their ludicrous "No one can be trusted! Except all the points of trust required to make the system works of course!" system.
      • KronisLV 5y ago
        > Doesn't civilization itself induce demand for cheap clean energy given the environmental forcing of unclean energy? Now this is probably not a good comparison, but the first thing that i thought of was something along the lines of: "Burning tires is bad for the environment, so we should burn more tires until some factors force us to stop doing that." Surely if there's a recognizably bad behavior, we should be able to stop doing it without being forced to, right? Where did the idea of being cautious in service of a potentially better future go? Why do we have such an exploitative mindset? > I don't see why the bitcoin case needs to be singled out any more than the yacht, private jet, gaming rig, or hell...even personal car cases. I don't have a yacht and i don't see why people should have them either, outside of sports or transporting many people (albeit there are more efficient ways). I don't have a private jet and i don't see why people should have them either, maybe apart from transporting government officials in certain situations. Actually, planes in general are overused and people should rely more on trains, which are environmentally friendly. My "gaming rig" draws around 100-200W in total under load, with a 65W CPU and a GPU that's power limited to 50% of its total power draw for longevity purposes. My homelab servers run off of 35W CPUs with iGPUs and both of them run with a total wall draw of 100W. Honestly, outside of media production, there is no reason for overpowered devices, plus the developers of games and much other software should be more concerned about doing more with less. And i don't own a personal car, thanks to the public transportation infrastructure in my country not being crippled. I studied for both my Bachelor and Master degree in the city and never felt the need for a car due to being able to take the bus, tram or trolley bus wherever i needed to go. And even when you need a car (e.g. living in the countryside or needing to transport tools or other things), you shouldn't got for wasteful ones. In summary, the human existence is one of excess, unnecessary luxury and waste. We absolutely should address that.
  • paulryanrogers 5y ago
    Consumption cannot scale to infinity. There's little harm in periodically taking account of the externalities of the things we value.
    • cameronh90 5y ago
      Perhaps not infinity, but if we manage to exploit space then it'd be close enough.
      • paulryanrogers 5y ago
        That's a big 'if'. And IMO pointless to explore seriously until we can sustain ourselves on our native planet.
        • cameronh90 5y ago
          I'm not talking about expansion into space (yet), but simply consuming resources from space. Energy, materials, etc. We definitely should explore that (and are).
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    • systemvoltage 5y ago
      • kodah 5y ago
        > The current mindset in California is to cut down life style and eat bugs. I live in CA, the valley specifically. I get why you have this image in your head, but I'm telling you it's not true. There are loads of normal people out here, with a select few very loud voices on certain topics. The problems those loud voices cause societally is likely more than their worth. This is true across the political ecosystem from what I've seen. It's not worth judging large groups of people by the loud and thorny voices among them.
  • elite_hacker2 5y ago
  • tsimionescu 5y ago
    The opposite is true. People already have this unhealthy growth mindset in regards to energy production, when in fact the only possible way of averting the worse disasters of global warming at this point is to adopt a de-growth mindset. There is absolutely no way to replace all dirty energy with clean energy in the 10-20 years we have left to avoid terrible global waing (>2 degrees), and not even in the maybe 30-40 years left before catastrophic global warming (>3 degrees).
• bahmboo 5y ago
  The fish have not adapted to the fish ladders and no salmon fisherman will tell you that. The dams do a lot but helping fish or the ecology is not on that list.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• zw123456 5y ago
  Agree E. WA is a great place for server farms. Unfortunately, lately there is a push for lower network latency, and in response to that, there are now a lot of Edge Cloud clusters being built near urban areas where various fossil fuel power plants to meet peak loads or load leveling are often used. Putting these edge cloud server farms in those areas will cause the carbon producing facilities to be activated more often. That low latency comes at a price to the environment more so than the centralized ones positioned in places like E. WA.
• textman 5y ago
  Sockeye salomon returning from the Pacific via Columbia R. to the Stanley basin in Idaho dropped from over 25000 to a few dozen. That is not adapting, rather, approaching extinction. https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/sockeye-salmon-return-to-redfish-lake-but-numbers-are-still-low/article_c51f734c-680a-5b0d-8c3a-5cff3e84c29b.html https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/sockeye-salmon-return-...
• ej3 5y ago
  > As the salmon fisherman will tell you... This is objectively false. Salmon populations are more often than not considered in decline. The fish haven't "figured it out". They marginally persist solely due to intensive management that plainly consists of atrocities for species less popular in the media [0][1], millions spent on fish ladder theatre, and hatcheries. The dominant mechanism in support of the fisheries being hatcheries that are basically a strangely laundered welfare program for indigenous, sport and professional fishermen each to their licensed proportion. If you live in the Dalles, and you don't know the Columbia basin damns are an ecological nightmare.. it's unconscionable. Not to mention the displacement of indigenous peoples from important traditional regions, the complete loss of stochastic annual flows feeding nutrient cycles in the river... etc etc. Im no eco-activist. I don't necessarily think removing the dams would improve anything for anyone at this point, but if we're going to advocate for doing things a better way in the future - let's be honest: dams are horrible. The dams on the Columbia will eventually result in no salmon, no matter how hard we try. It's inhospitable. They used to run all the way up the snake into Idaho. Into IDAHO. Never again. It's ok to advocate for energy, and the things you believe in, but let's not be belligerent about it - be honest. In the Astoria maritime museum (several years ago now) I remember reading a passage that was proud of "..taming the wild Columbia, and turning it into a beautiful series of lakes and streams to wonderfully facilitate shipping and recreation.." Some hutzpah, to think we know what we're doing. [0] https://www.audubon.org/news/the-corps-cormorants-and-cull https://www.audubon.org/news/the-corps-cormorants-and-cull [1] https://www.marinemammalcenter.org/news/response-to-columbia-river-basin-sea-lion-cull https://www.marinemammalcenter.org/news/response-to-columbia...
  • kixiQu 5y ago
    Just in case anyone who isn't from the PNW is wondering at the energy and number of replies OP has gotten about this: Water quality and the salmon-centered river/stream ecosystem is, like, the local environmental thing everyone gets slammed with in school. Your biology class has you go look for arthropods. Your chemistry class has you go test for pH and dissolved oxygen and fertilizer contamination. Way more species (including plants) rely on the salmon than you'd guess but oh boy do you learn about it in a PNW school system. And on the other side, the history of the dams is the history of the growth of the Northwest -- "your power is turning our darkness to dawn, so roll on, Columbia, roll on" is in the Washington state folk song and it's not even an aberration re: the region's folk songs / culture. ("Skagit Valley, Skagit Valley, / They would turn you to a mud pond / To run the Coca Cola coolers in Seattle, U.S.A.") I just thought this would be interesting to contribute because I've found people from other regions sometimes have an ambient awareness more on the level of "Um, I guess there are fish in the water? And runoff seems bad?" and that just isn't possible for locals here, so that's why it's all somewhat heightened.
• rr808 5y ago
  Its great that these huge corporations use hydro power for greenwashing, but there is a limit to how much hydro any river can generate and it would be great to use these sources for regular people and/or when there is no solar/wind.
  • adrianN 5y ago
    Regular people are quite often beneficiaries of the products that these companies provide.
• vanusa 5y ago
  The salmon have adapted to the fish ladders That's a strange use of "adapted", there. The logic here seems to be: "Sure, salmon and trout numbers have gone down -- but not all runs have been completely wiped out. Therefore, they have "adapted" and there's really nothing to worry about. All so-called scientists talking about a 98 percent reduction in return counts since 1880, and warning that some runs are on the verge of extinction due to the combined effects of habitat reduction and climate change -- they have no idea what they're talking about, really."
  • usrusr 5y ago
    Is the decline caused by the dams though? From where I'm standing (half a planet away), it's not so clear, they could go extinct and be perfectly adapted at the same time.
• waynecochran 5y ago
  Edit: My comment concerning salmon was poor. The fisherman I know who fish above Bonneville, The Dalles, and even above the John Day dams do catch salmon have good reports, but this is only local and anecdotal. We know there are places where salmon are spawning where they haven't in 80 years which gives hope, but doesn't provide a good overall indicator. The dams have been a tough on the Salmon.
  • ej3 5y ago
    Thanks for that. I hate to nit pick, but the issues surrounding the dams in the Columbia river basin are so complex and frustrating.. I honestly don't even know who or what is right at any given moment. I've torched friendships debating culling - not even sure I was right or they were. It's just horrible. Everything about it. The dams are hugely beneficial to society. The produce energy and expedite inland commerce, and that makes us all better off. At the same time everything comes at a cost, and the costs are easily just as catastrophic. I've seen rivers three times the size of the Columbia that have no dams. They are like the arteries of the Earth. They wend and breathe through existence itself. Heave and fall feet in hours. To see this, to be near it is to feel everything upstream. It's like looking into the night sky, but instead of making you feel small it connects you. The Columbia is dead. I get itchy about it because we've lost that and no one even knows anymore. We long ago muted a voice that used to sing to us, but people will only consider the loss in economic terms - salmon fisheries. We can't even talk about things like humans anymore.
    • specialist 5y ago
      > The Columbia is dead. And you haven't even mentioned the Hanford Nuclear Reservation yet. I volunteered at Audubon's WetNet (Wetlands Conservation Network) for most of the 90s. Their mission was to save the salmon from going extinct. So doing stuff like saving habitat (waterways, wetlands, shorelines, etc), keeping water cooler, opposing new fisheries (the final nail in the coffin for wild runs), etc. People just don't get how bad things have become. When GWB was selected President, I just couldn't continue.
    • i_love_music 5y ago
• barkingcat 5y ago
  Salmon in the Pacific Northwest on the whole is dying. The entire salmon fishery will go extinct. Don't know where you get your information from, but Salmon in the Pacific Northwest is going the way of the cod fisheries in the North American Eastern seaboard. Don't believe what your "salmon fisherman" will tell you - their whole purpose in life, their raison d'etre is to fish the salmon until every single last one is gone. Then they will move to another place to fish.
• zw123456 5y ago
  Don't forget, E. Washington has a lot of wind farms going, it's pretty windy, there is a reason the Columbia River Gorge is so popular for wind surfing. Also, placing server farms in northern latitudes is smart from a cooling perspective, you can use the Economizers on the CRAC units more often when it is cool outside.
• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• eru 5y ago
  Keep in mind that to a certain extent electricity is fungible. If data centres weren't using the clean energy, something else could use it that's currently being produced in a more dirty way.