[slippy]

The simple answer to this: Tax the #### out of the greenhouse gas emitting energy sources.

If we as a planet need to be using better sources of power so that our planet literally doesn't melt our food sources, and then us, then our governments need to make it more cost effective to use better sources. Carbon credits or energy swaps don't work to actually reduce the amount of polluting energy produced.

[rapsey]

Or fast track building 20+ nuclear reactors like China is doing.

[Cthulhu_]

The perceived problem people keep mentioning is waste, but the problem there is that people don't want it in their backyards, like, anywhere. But, yeet it into a mountain cave, encased in lead and concrete, and forget about it. This is what's happening in Finland I believe.

[smegger001]

We planed to do that originally but unfortunely the NIMBY crowd near yucca mountain got upset about it. fortunatly we have tech now to build reactors that turn refine used fuel into new fuel and low radiation byproduct but thanks to decades of the fossil fuel industry funding groups like the siera club and greenpeace we now have a national irrational phobia of atomic energy of any-sort

[monocasa]

We've had that tech for decades, it's what France's infrastructure is built on.

The US doesn't like it because you end up with plutonium doing that. It's contrary to their geopolitical/non-proliferation goals if we start using it because we simultaneously want fairly arbitrary foreign states to use nuclear power (so they don't feel as compelled to start wars over energy), and we don't want arbitrary states having the ability to create nuclear weapons. So pretending that reprocessing fuel isn't the best way to approach long term nuclear power generation is what the DoE/DoD/DoS are stuck on, even domestically.

[pas]

the real problem is cost, because bad regulations (which causes too safe and too expensive reactors, but even on top of that the whole industry is too small, there's no efficiency in building half a plant in 5 years...)

https://blog.rootsofprogress.org/devanney-on-the-nuclear-flo...

[notTooFarGone]

ah yeah the good old 10 trillion budget vs the 1 trillion for the same amount of renewables with a faster pace.

[phil21]

Datacenters require pretty constant 24/7 loads. You don’t get much difference at scale between 2pm and 2am. Maybe 10-20% at best.

It’s about the last place you want to start using intermittent power sources.

Chemical battery storage is simply not feasible today for such uses cases. If you go renewable your choice currently is to back that intermittent source with either coal or natural gas at nearly a 1:1 basis.

Nuclear starts looking pretty compelling for such use cases.

The dirty secret of renewables is that they are currently directly linked to natural gas peaker plants. This was obvious a decade ago, and still is just as true. My portfolio shows I was completely correct in this prediction.

Chemical storage at these tens to hundreds of megawatt scale is currently a pipe dream. Current deployments are measured in single digit hours of storage. Perhaps another decade will show things have changed, but I doubt it. Nuclear is currently the best battery tech we have available. Especially considering how greenwashed methane production has been.

And that’s not even getting into seasonal energy storage which we simply do not have any answers for short of hydro. Interconnections only work so long until you run out of other people’s coal or nuclear power sources.

I suppose you could redesign your facility to operate the emergency diesel backup generation on a regular basis but that’s even worse.

I’m very into solar and battery storage where it makes sense - even if not the most economical. I think anyone who can afford it should have a solar setup plus a few days worth of batteries installed at their place of residence. Focusing on datacenter power use is about the last thing we should be looking at after we optimize the rest. It’s like focusing on aviation as your priority for co2 reduction. Why go after the highest hanging fruit when so much low hanging fruit currently exists?

[7952]

>> The dirty secret of renewables is that they are currently directly linked to natural gas peaker plants. This was obvious a decade ago, and still is just as true. My portfolio shows I was completely correct in this prediction.

It is true that peaker plants have grown alongside renewables. And that combination has reduced CO2 emissions, which was the whole point. And mostly it isn't peaker plants but more conventioanl CCGT's.

>> Chemical storage at these tens to hundreds of megawatt scale is currently a pipe dream. Current deployments are measured in single digit hours of storage.

There is over 80GW of battery storage capacity in the pipeline for the UK alone. And GW scale schemes are already active and being built. And whilst most schemes are still small (in MW and MWh terms) the grid is perfectly well designed to handle that.

>> Interconnections only work so long until you run out of other people’s coal or nuclear power sources.

And particularly renewables where there is excess generation in geographically distant places.

>> I suppose you could redesign your facility to operate the emergency diesel backup generation on a regular basis but that’s even worse.

Or just connect to a grid with a healthy mix of renewables, storage, interconnection, and yes nuclear. It is not an all or nothing question.

>> Why go after the highest hanging fruit when so much low hanging fruit currently exists?

Grid scale generation and usage is the low hanging fruit. That is why companies focus on it so much! A solar farm with 80k panels is cheaper to develop than 20k rooftop installations. A large operator like Google can make a significant difference on their own.

[Cthulhu_]

[citation needed]

[briansm]

Even simpler answer - acceptance of humanity's addiction to fossil energy and the inevitable outcome. We started an anthropic fire a million years ago and it's only going to be extinguished when we are.

[davidhalter]

This is such a defeatist and simplistic answer. Climate warming models show big differences between 2 and 4 degrees Celcius. I know the planet is eventually going to be extinguished, but we are nowhere near that point and just giving up seems like a very bad idea for our children...

[briansm]

Acceptance is the road to inner peace. Accepting the mortality of the species is no different to accepting personal mortality - you know you're going to be dead before the end of the century, right? You enjoy the time you have, as we all collectively should. To expect even one person, ever mind a whole country to give up living like Royalty is unreasonable. (despite its inevitability). Big fast cars, abundance of food, instant satiation, nobody's going to give that up voluntarily.

Asking for taxes to go up is fine, but nobody wants to pay more taxes.

[davidhalter]

I agree that this is where it is likely going to go. I have also found my peace about that a while ago. On a personal level I also don't believe that giving up big cars, flying and other things is something that nobody is doing. There are quite a few people that avoid such things, including me.

I feel like you underestimate the energy that sacrifice releases. I also feel like you don't have children. Because if you did a sentence like "you know you're going to be dead before the end of the century, right?" would probably not be what you were thinking. Exactly when you have something to lose (the life of your children and grand children), it generates a desire to change this miserable state that the world is in. This is not a depressed or negative state. It's the opposite. It feel like diving into the issues of the world and not looking away.

And I think the injunction to "Enjoy!" is exactly what's wrong with the world and what leads you away from inner peace. This is what psycho analysts have discovered quite a while ago and what religious people are able to avoid by having higher goals than your own enjoyment. My own experience with this is that since I have given up trying to enjoy my life and I'm trying to wrestle with my own negativity, life is better.

[Cthulhu_]

Vote Cthulhu 2024, we shall burn the world in eldritch fire. #NoMoreYears