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I think the costs are going to be astronomical, and that's the difference with cloud computing - if it cost 10X as much to use AWS as it did to run your own ser

I think the costs are going to be astronomical, and that's the difference with cloud computing - if it cost 10X as much to use AWS as it did to run your own servers onsite with IT people to manage them, AWS would never have taken off. Likewise, for mining and agriculture, onsite solar/storage is almost certainly going to be much cheaper. Electric container ships are an interesting idea, but even there it might actually be cheaper to just synthesize fuel from water and air. In particular, transmission losses and low efficiency seem to be the fundamental problem. See previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31521665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31521665

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago
> Electric container ships are an interesting idea, but even there it might actually be cheaper to just synthesize fuel from water and air. How does one do this without power? And if possible, why isn't it done already?!
- ch4s3 4y ago
  You’d do it at the port with nuclear/wind/solar. No one does it now because marine fuel is super cheap.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  > How does one do this without power? You synthesize the fuel when and where you have power. > And if possible, why isn't it done already?! Hasn't hit cost parity yet. Hydrogen is the cheapest and it's still about triple the price. More portable fuels are more expensive to synthesize and cheaper to mine. Add a carbon tax (bunker fuel is filthy) and watch it happen overnight, or wait until around 2030 when the prices will cross over (but there will be an equilibrium price while capacity is built).
sjducb 4y ago
AWS is 10-100x the cost of on prem. I've got a client who is paying about $300k per year for a postgres instance that is basically my laptop. I think S3 is a loss leader and EC2 is close to cost. Everything else is a massive markup.

onlyrealcuzzo 4y ago

> Electric container ships are an interesting idea, but even there it might actually be cheaper to just synthesize fuel from water and air. How does one do this without power? And if possible, why isn't it done already?!

ch4s3 4y ago
You’d do it at the port with nuclear/wind/solar. No one does it now because marine fuel is super cheap.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Schroedingersat 4y ago
> How does one do this without power? You synthesize the fuel when and where you have power. > And if possible, why isn't it done already?! Hasn't hit cost parity yet. Hydrogen is the cheapest and it's still about triple the price. More portable fuels are more expensive to synthesize and cheaper to mine. Add a carbon tax (bunker fuel is filthy) and watch it happen overnight, or wait until around 2030 when the prices will cross over (but there will be an equilibrium price while capacity is built).

sjducb 4y ago

AWS is 10-100x the cost of on prem. I've got a client who is paying about $300k per year for a postgres instance that is basically my laptop. I think S3 is a loss leader and EC2 is close to cost. Everything else is a massive markup.