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Glass half full view would be that *if* we are able to get AI data centers to invest in the build out of renewables then we get to use all that power when the AI bubble bursts. Lot of of it's tho

I figured it out - on-site nuclear.

plain & simple greenwashing

Ok and? That can be said about everything. Sending that message creates toxic waste and pollution.

Renewables are overwhelmingly recyclable, excepting maybe turbine blades, which are fiberglass, which is rock

Why? If I wanted to add a server farm in my backyard shed and used solar to power the server farm, I would be increasing my power usage without contributing any meaningful amount of pollutants or CO2 into the environment.

“20,000 acres.” Do you know how many acres are currently dedicated to corn for ethanol???

Isn’t really as much of an ethical leap as most people would assume. The deals with our financial devils were made long ago.

This feels like Anti Renewable propaganda? Regardless of how the energy is being used. More renewable energy sources is good....full stop....

Renewables will follow the money and the path of least resistance just like anyone else.

Hear me out. Nuclear.

I suppose also it depends on what, exactly, Google and Meta will choose to build. If it's not capacity on the public grid, what benefit does any other industry see from that investment?

Huh? Of course it is. It can increase over time, but there is a finite amount of capacity we can add per year today.

I actually think I support a nuclear mandate for data centres, because they need a big slug of up-front cash to get built, and then when this bubble pops (which it will do relatively soon - this decade I'm pretty certain) they all become stranded assets and we can buy them for pennies on the dollar.

There was a scooter app all over Chicago for a while and if you'd call them and complain about them clogging up bike racks, they'd send someone out and install a couple new racks. The company is gone, but the racks are pretty good. Anyway, solar.

Doesn't that presuppose that the data centers won't be built?

Large scale AI datacenters are immoral. Any electricity going to power them is likewise immoral. It doesn't matter the source of the electricity.

Oddly enough this is the AI progress w/out fully understanding risks problem in different clothes. Data centers are bad, don’t enable them. Renewables have no bearing on whether they’re built. If they don’t power them, fossil fuels will. Better to reduce harm. On this, I agree with the latter.

No, but it's a line of soft resistance, especially if the point of a data centre is to create a demand for gas. The trick, of course, is to be adamant in the face of several trillion dollars worth of lobbying.

The idea of 'Abundance' is a big problem, as it is often read as an invitation to waste. We need priorities.

I understand that you have a humiliation fetish and desperately want to lick your billionaire owner's boots, as your ilk bends at the knee, but... ...Yes, public transit should be a charity. Making it for profit is nonsense. States should actually aid their population, not only corporations.

How about using clean energy because it's, you know, clean? As opposed to dirty and polluting because pollution is bad? Whatever, it looks like economics will mostly push power generation in the needed direction without people having to do the right thing just because it's right.

exactly

Historically, increased demand for solar panels and batteries made them cheaper and more accessible for energy transition buildout. It’s not like the reason we are not building more clean power is because production got sold out.

Use the boom in data centre capital to fund an expansion of our renewable energy capacity beyond what the data centres themselves need.

How about they're forced to generate their own clean power on site? You're not even trying.

The purpose of so many data centres is to overwhelm renewable. Nobody is asking all these data centres where their customers are and who they're processing data for. There have to be way more data centres than demand for them meaning all the servers are powered up with no demand or revenue.

But not holding to that principle of making heat do work, and instead using burning fossil fuel to make steel or hot volcanic rock to heat Reykjavik, in the end that's just Evereything Is Gender theory, and not in the good way.

I keep hearing commentary with a resolved message of 'Energy consumption will rise over X years by X%'. Plenty of signs that in no way are we really trying to do better.