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AI models don’t care if the electricity comes from renewable sources. Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels at this point and getting cheaper still. I feel
by kaibee 2y ago
AI models don’t care if the electricity comes from renewable sources. Renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels at this point and getting cheaper still. I feel a lot better about a world where we consume 10x the energy but it comes from renewables than one where we only consume 2x but the lack of demand limits investment in renewables.
- shadowgovt 2y agoIt's also a great load to support with renewables because you can always do training as "bulk operations" on the margins. Just do them when renewable supply is high and demand is low; that energy can't be stored and would have been wasted anyway.
- cornholio 2y agoThis is a complete fantasy as the depreciation rate on the hardware is higher than the prices of electricity. Again, look at bitcoin mining, the miners will happily pay any carbon tax to work 24/7, it's better to run the farm to cover electricity prices and then make some pennies then to keep it off and incur depreciation costs.
- 35mm 2y agoEspecially if one were to only run the servers during the daytime, when they can be powered directly from photovoltaics.
- mlyle 2y agoWhich isn't going to happen, because you want to amortize these cards over 24 hours per day, not just when the renewables are shining or blowing.
- cornholio 2y agoThis is a dangerous fantasy. Everything we know about the de-carbonation of the grid suggests that conservation is a key strategy for the next decades. There is no credible scenario towards 100% renewables. Storage is insanely expensive and green load smoothing capacity such as hydro and biomass is naturally limited. So a substantial part of the production when renewables drop will be handled by natural gas, which seem to have equivalent emissions similar to coal when you factor in the lost methane, fracked methane in particular. In addition, even 100% renewable would be attainable, that would still require massive infrastructure investment, resource use and associated emissions, since most of the corresponding industries, such as concrete and steel production, aluminum and copper ore mining and refining etc. are very far from net zero and will stay that way for decades. To throw into this planet-sized bonfire a large uninterruptible consumer, whose standby capital depreciation on things like state of the art datacenters far exceeds the cost most industries are willing to pay for energy, all predicated on the idea that "demand spurs renewable investments", is frankly idiotic.
- shadowgovt 2y agoSounds like we'll have to adjust the price of non-renewables to reflect total cost, not just extraction, transportation, and generation cost.
- oceanplexian 2y agoSure there is, Nuclear is zero emission and renewable and powers 70% of the French electric grid. Uranium in the oceans is thought to regenerate itself but even if that turned out to not be true, should be good for at least a few hundred thousand years. It would require a massive infrastructure investment so now would be a good time to get started.
- adrianN 2y agoWe currently don't live in a world where renewable energy is available in excess.