6 ms·

This is so unacceptable. Build as many data centers as you want, but fossil fuels NEED to stop yesterday.

by AgentOrange1234 2mo ago

dev_l1x_be 2mo ago
Imagine that you need to explain to a type II alien that your species still burns things.
- LogicFailsMe 2mo ago
  Imagine the type II alien nods with understanding in a human way that your species just isn't ready and it might not ever be as it erases your memory of the encounter and returns to the stars, stopping only to scan your anal sphincter because all the type II civilizations remain puzzled by it. Or maybe you'd prefer this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI
- Barrin92 2mo ago
  I think they'd give you some leeway if you fired up gas plants to not freeze in the winter, I want to see their faces when you tell them you turned them on because you wanted to generate more digital slop during a climate crisis
  - fragmede 2mo ago
    Who were you able to entertain with that "digital slop", and how many father's did you disappoint with it?
- rainsford 2mo ago
  The harder thing would be to explain why your species continues to get energy by burning things despite having multiple alternatives and that many people are deeply ideologically opposed to moving away from burning things. Or maybe not. Maybe this is a civilizational growing pain these aliens are familiar with. Maybe they went through the same period themselves.
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Imagine they got here without burning anything, ever, in the history of their species.
  - trhway 2mo ago
    Once the Ancient Greeks had copper and iron they could potentially do wind and hydro electricity and metal-air batteries - and the civilization would probably go just fine without fossil fuels.
thatfrenchguy 2mo ago
I mean, marginally, any data center (or mall, house, but the numbers involved are smaller) you'll build in Texas is going to be a lot of tons of CO2 just from their added marginal power consumption
tptacek 2mo ago
This is, putting it gently, not a majority opinion in the US and especially not in Texas.
- trickypr 2mo ago
  In the same way “smoking causes cancer” was a minority opinion in the 50s and 60s.
  - tptacek 2mo ago
    You hope. People who believe things you disagree with say the same thing about their beliefs! (I think the way through this mess is huge investment in renewables, and that blue states have calamitously dropped the ball by pushing so much data center construction to red states that aren't going to incentivize that.)
    - rc5150 2mo ago
      "People who believe things you disagree with say the same thing about their beliefs!" This statement can be applied to literally any topic and it fills me with a dread that is only matched by trying to fathom the inifinite nature of the universe and time. The notion of having good faith, well intentioned debate and discourse around any conceivable subject just feels impossible most of the time.
      - tptacek 2mo ago
        That was my point. People disagree about this topic. I happen to agree that climate change is a real and imminent problem (though probably not, with the previous commenter, about its solution space). Pointing to public opinion about smoking in the 1950s is a conclusory argument; it doesn't get us anywhere.
        harimau777 2mo ago
        The problem is that the two sides disagreeing are not equal.
Lerc 2mo ago
In broad strokes I tend to agree. I think there is a fairly good path to moving most things to electricity and in turn moving most electricity generation to renewables. The more nuanced view is that I would support a residual use of fossil fuels for niche applications that require the properties of the fuel in instances where no known substitute solution would do the job. By and large, renewables are marching towards a state where they will provide enough of the generation that what remains would be insignificant. I would be interested to know where the gas is coming from for this particular data centre. There are a few cases that generation by gas is preferable to what is happening right now. One good example is if the gas is from sources that would otherwise be flared off. I have heard in the past that businesses have been reluctant to harness energy from gas rather than flaring it off because any user of the energy gets tagged with the CO2 emissions. If it just gets burnt off it makes no difference to the amount of total emissions, but it avoids the CO2 being attributed to their industry.
- sandworm101 2mo ago
  There is a time and place for fossil fuels. I see too many people scream for electrification in new biuldings yet do not hesitate to operate a backyard grill, or eat out at restaurants (electrifying a commercial kitchen is a massive ask).
  - doctorwho42 2mo ago
    Ah yes, 20GW of new LNG based power generation is the same as the occasional backyard grill usage, or eating out at restaurants... Very whataboutism
  - paulryanrogers 2mo ago
    > I see too many people scream for electrification in new biuldings yet do not hesitate to operate a backyard grill, or eat out at restaurants It's not hypocrisy to want things to be better and tolerate that some things are net negative. I have a fireplace and enjoy using it. But it's bad for my kids health and neighborhood air quality. So I use it far less than my parents did theirs. I also don't commute and fly far less than my father did throughout his life. Life isn't some strict binary, all or nothing affair.
delichon 2mo ago
> fossil fuels NEED to stop yesterday At the current rate it will stop in four to ten centuries. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPXRjoqbcAATWUu?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPXRjoqbcAATWUu?format=jpg
- jahnu 2mo ago
  Yes at the current rate but if I drew a line at the 2006 rate of solar growth would it have anything to do with the rate now? How about 2016? I’m down about our prospects for limiting the damage but let’s not be irrationally doomer about it either. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capacity https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...
  - doctorwho42 2mo ago
    And that is due to external actors, aka China, not the US and it's policies. We had the ability, technology, and desire to do what China is doing now back in 2006... But instead we made a housing bubble, then we dumped every investment dollar into silicon valley startups to make apps.
- odo1242 2mo ago
  Physical limitations dictate it'll stop (being worth it economically to keep extracting) by like 2080 or 2090, but we'll be in way worse shape by then. That said there has never been argument about whether we are on that trajectory, we want to be on that trajectory
belorn 2mo ago
I have long advocated that EU should be in the forefront and start sunsetting fossil fueled power generation, by setting a date when no new construction is allowed and then letting the existing fleet naturally die. It would send a strong signal to the rest of the world that we can't keep constructing new thermal power stations that continue to burn fuel whenever we have need to increase capacity and grid stability. Sadly there aren't much support to do this. The largest coalition see thermal power stations as critical to manage grid stability and voted to have natural gas defined as "green", since they view it as necessary to enable renewable energy to be built. The other major coalition do want to decrease the need for thermal power plants by increasing base load through nuclear power, but they are not openly against thermal power plants as a way to reduce costs. EU lacks any movement that are willing to pay the cost of not burning fuel in order to generate electricity. Same for basically every other place on earth right now, despite EU and most countries being in agreement that climate change is real and fossil fuels should be stopped yesterday.
- snapplebobapple 2mo ago
  thats an excellent way to make your populace poorerand therefore more willing to degrade the en>ironment for a better quality life
- spacephysics 2mo ago
  This is a national security nightmare. For better or worse, fossil fuels have massive energy densities, which makes economics in defense context (and others) extremely favorable. Even with today’s energy polices, electricity costs have skyrocketed (this was the case before the data center demand). Couple that with electrification of vehicles, phase out of natural gas/oil heaters, I think its reckless abandon to push policies which harm middle and lower class families. Not to say some of these countries even consider nuclear energy “evil”. Absolutely ridiculous.
  - nixon_why69 2mo ago
    In the EU's case, dependence on Russian gas is already a national security nightmare.
perpetuallunch 2mo ago
Why? Because you said so? So China and India can use all the fossil fuels they want, and other counties too not just them. But the West has to kowtow to Net Zero / ”Renewables” nonsense? We’re not buying it anymore. Everything has tradeoffs. Destroying the economy and letting low income and poor people freeze in the dark or melt in the sun is passé.
- VohuMana 2mo ago
  But doesn’t China have the largest rollout of solar in the world?
  - Lerc 2mo ago
    I believe so, They have also increased their coal consumption. The #1 increase in world electricity demand is people rising out of poverty. China has been producing the most solar in the world and still hasn't been able to cover their own demand increase with it. Eventually that form of growth will slow down. Sustainability should always look at the second derivative.
    - jahnu 2mo ago
      It’s worth pointing out that already last year while China’s coal power capacity grew their actual power production from coal fell. Also need to reduce use of coal in steel production too, yet.
  - dburkland 2mo ago
    Maybe we should be looking inward as to why solar isn't more easily deployable in the US. Local zoning, permitting, and community opposition are some of the top road blocks there...
    - perpetuallunch 2mo ago
      Solar needs to address its dispatchability problem before it becomes viable as anything other than a vanity project. Australia is experiencing this problem now to a limited extent, and is walking in to a disaster scenario with the scheduled shutdown of 5 gigawatts of coal fired electricity generating across three sites over the next three years with nothing in the pipeline to replace that 5GW.
matt4711 2mo ago
I remember a couple of years ago Amazon added a new leadership principle: Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them. these actions are exactly the opposite of what they claim to try to strive towards.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

This is so unacceptable. Build as many data centers as you want, but fossil fuels NEED to stop yesterday.

dev_l1x_be 2mo ago

Imagine that you need to explain to a type II alien that your species still burns things.

LogicFailsMe 2mo ago
Imagine the type II alien nods with understanding in a human way that your species just isn't ready and it might not ever be as it erases your memory of the encounter and returns to the stars, stopping only to scan your anal sphincter because all the type II civilizations remain puzzled by it. Or maybe you'd prefer this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbT1fCHOjfI
Barrin92 2mo ago
I think they'd give you some leeway if you fired up gas plants to not freeze in the winter, I want to see their faces when you tell them you turned them on because you wanted to generate more digital slop during a climate crisis
- fragmede 2mo ago
  Who were you able to entertain with that "digital slop", and how many father's did you disappoint with it?
rainsford 2mo ago
The harder thing would be to explain why your species continues to get energy by burning things despite having multiple alternatives and that many people are deeply ideologically opposed to moving away from burning things. Or maybe not. Maybe this is a civilizational growing pain these aliens are familiar with. Maybe they went through the same period themselves.
fragmede 2mo ago
Imagine they got here without burning anything, ever, in the history of their species.
- trhway 2mo ago
  Once the Ancient Greeks had copper and iron they could potentially do wind and hydro electricity and metal-air batteries - and the civilization would probably go just fine without fossil fuels.

thatfrenchguy 2mo ago

I mean, marginally, any data center (or mall, house, but the numbers involved are smaller) you'll build in Texas is going to be a lot of tons of CO2 just from their added marginal power consumption

tptacek 2mo ago

This is, putting it gently, not a majority opinion in the US and especially not in Texas.

trickypr 2mo ago
In the same way “smoking causes cancer” was a minority opinion in the 50s and 60s.
- tptacek 2mo ago
  You hope. People who believe things you disagree with say the same thing about their beliefs! (I think the way through this mess is huge investment in renewables, and that blue states have calamitously dropped the ball by pushing so much data center construction to red states that aren't going to incentivize that.)
  - rc5150 2mo ago
    "People who believe things you disagree with say the same thing about their beliefs!" This statement can be applied to literally any topic and it fills me with a dread that is only matched by trying to fathom the inifinite nature of the universe and time. The notion of having good faith, well intentioned debate and discourse around any conceivable subject just feels impossible most of the time.
    - tptacek 2mo ago
      That was my point. People disagree about this topic. I happen to agree that climate change is a real and imminent problem (though probably not, with the previous commenter, about its solution space). Pointing to public opinion about smoking in the 1950s is a conclusory argument; it doesn't get us anywhere.
      - harimau777 2mo ago
        The problem is that the two sides disagreeing are not equal.

Lerc 2mo ago

In broad strokes I tend to agree. I think there is a fairly good path to moving most things to electricity and in turn moving most electricity generation to renewables. The more nuanced view is that I would support a residual use of fossil fuels for niche applications that require the properties of the fuel in instances where no known substitute solution would do the job. By and large, renewables are marching towards a state where they will provide enough of the generation that what remains would be insignificant. I would be interested to know where the gas is coming from for this particular data centre. There are a few cases that generation by gas is preferable to what is happening right now. One good example is if the gas is from sources that would otherwise be flared off. I have heard in the past that businesses have been reluctant to harness energy from gas rather than flaring it off because any user of the energy gets tagged with the CO2 emissions. If it just gets burnt off it makes no difference to the amount of total emissions, but it avoids the CO2 being attributed to their industry.

sandworm101 2mo ago
There is a time and place for fossil fuels. I see too many people scream for electrification in new biuldings yet do not hesitate to operate a backyard grill, or eat out at restaurants (electrifying a commercial kitchen is a massive ask).
- doctorwho42 2mo ago
  Ah yes, 20GW of new LNG based power generation is the same as the occasional backyard grill usage, or eating out at restaurants... Very whataboutism
- paulryanrogers 2mo ago
  > I see too many people scream for electrification in new biuldings yet do not hesitate to operate a backyard grill, or eat out at restaurants It's not hypocrisy to want things to be better and tolerate that some things are net negative. I have a fireplace and enjoy using it. But it's bad for my kids health and neighborhood air quality. So I use it far less than my parents did theirs. I also don't commute and fly far less than my father did throughout his life. Life isn't some strict binary, all or nothing affair.

delichon 2mo ago

> fossil fuels NEED to stop yesterday At the current rate it will stop in four to ten centuries. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPXRjoqbcAATWUu?format=jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HPXRjoqbcAATWUu?format=jpg

jahnu 2mo ago
Yes at the current rate but if I drew a line at the 2006 rate of solar growth would it have anything to do with the rate now? How about 2016? I’m down about our prospects for limiting the damage but let’s not be irrationally doomer about it either. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capacity https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/installed-solar-pv-capaci...
- doctorwho42 2mo ago
  And that is due to external actors, aka China, not the US and it's policies. We had the ability, technology, and desire to do what China is doing now back in 2006... But instead we made a housing bubble, then we dumped every investment dollar into silicon valley startups to make apps.
odo1242 2mo ago
Physical limitations dictate it'll stop (being worth it economically to keep extracting) by like 2080 or 2090, but we'll be in way worse shape by then. That said there has never been argument about whether we are on that trajectory, we want to be on that trajectory

belorn 2mo ago

I have long advocated that EU should be in the forefront and start sunsetting fossil fueled power generation, by setting a date when no new construction is allowed and then letting the existing fleet naturally die. It would send a strong signal to the rest of the world that we can't keep constructing new thermal power stations that continue to burn fuel whenever we have need to increase capacity and grid stability. Sadly there aren't much support to do this. The largest coalition see thermal power stations as critical to manage grid stability and voted to have natural gas defined as "green", since they view it as necessary to enable renewable energy to be built. The other major coalition do want to decrease the need for thermal power plants by increasing base load through nuclear power, but they are not openly against thermal power plants as a way to reduce costs. EU lacks any movement that are willing to pay the cost of not burning fuel in order to generate electricity. Same for basically every other place on earth right now, despite EU and most countries being in agreement that climate change is real and fossil fuels should be stopped yesterday.

snapplebobapple 2mo ago
thats an excellent way to make your populace poorerand therefore more willing to degrade the en>ironment for a better quality life
spacephysics 2mo ago
This is a national security nightmare. For better or worse, fossil fuels have massive energy densities, which makes economics in defense context (and others) extremely favorable. Even with today’s energy polices, electricity costs have skyrocketed (this was the case before the data center demand). Couple that with electrification of vehicles, phase out of natural gas/oil heaters, I think its reckless abandon to push policies which harm middle and lower class families. Not to say some of these countries even consider nuclear energy “evil”. Absolutely ridiculous.
- nixon_why69 2mo ago
  In the EU's case, dependence on Russian gas is already a national security nightmare.

perpetuallunch 2mo ago

Why? Because you said so? So China and India can use all the fossil fuels they want, and other counties too not just them. But the West has to kowtow to Net Zero / ”Renewables” nonsense? We’re not buying it anymore. Everything has tradeoffs. Destroying the economy and letting low income and poor people freeze in the dark or melt in the sun is passé.

VohuMana 2mo ago
But doesn’t China have the largest rollout of solar in the world?
- Lerc 2mo ago
  I believe so, They have also increased their coal consumption. The #1 increase in world electricity demand is people rising out of poverty. China has been producing the most solar in the world and still hasn't been able to cover their own demand increase with it. Eventually that form of growth will slow down. Sustainability should always look at the second derivative.
  - jahnu 2mo ago
    It’s worth pointing out that already last year while China’s coal power capacity grew their actual power production from coal fell. Also need to reduce use of coal in steel production too, yet.
- dburkland 2mo ago
  Maybe we should be looking inward as to why solar isn't more easily deployable in the US. Local zoning, permitting, and community opposition are some of the top road blocks there...
  - perpetuallunch 2mo ago
    Solar needs to address its dispatchability problem before it becomes viable as anything other than a vanity project. Australia is experiencing this problem now to a limited extent, and is walking in to a disaster scenario with the scheduled shutdown of 5 gigawatts of coal fired electricity generating across three sites over the next three years with nothing in the pipeline to replace that 5GW.

matt4711 2mo ago

I remember a couple of years ago Amazon added a new leadership principle: Success and Scale Bring Broad Responsibility We started in a garage, but we’re not there anymore. We are big, we impact the world, and we are far from perfect. We must be humble and thoughtful about even the secondary effects of our actions. Our local communities, planet, and future generations need us to be better every day. We must begin each day with a determination to make better, do better, and be better for our customers, our employees, our partners, and the world at large. And we must end every day knowing we can do even more tomorrow. Leaders create more than they consume and always leave things better than how they found them. these actions are exactly the opposite of what they claim to try to strive towards.

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]