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by lotsofpulp 339 days ago
I don’t understand why this comment is downvoted. The options to reduce total energy consumption were always humans voluntarily accepting lower quality of life (not just among the top 1 million or 100 million, but top 2 billion at least, so this was obviously not going to happen), or reduce total number of humans.
1 comments
trehalose 339 days ago
It would make a difference even if we humans could just accept the same quality of life we already have, instead of building more and more, larger and larger data centers, for whatever the future of AI is. Computers have become so much more efficient than they used to be, and despite any joke we can make about Electron apps and such, those are still reductions in energy consumption, and some people are building such extravagant compute facilities that far outweigh the progress people have made on reducing energy costs.
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codyb 339 days ago
It is great to see progress on those mini nuclear reactors for data centers though?

https://www.popsci.com/environment/google-mini-nuclear-react...

Really hoping the work here ends up producing solutions that can be taken advantage of by cities and towns since the smaller size factor requires a lot less onerous demands for deployment.

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lotsofpulp 338 days ago
I assume energy use by electronic devices is a distant runner up of energy use compared to moving lots of mass (individuals + their large personal cars) lots of distance (to and from their large lots in far flung suburbs). And leisure travel of course, especially via airplane.
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trehalose 338 days ago
Oh, I bet you're right. I was only giving the first example that came to mind. I think transportation is a better example, a field where many cities (at least in the USA) could have better quality of life for less energy. When everyone drives their own car every day because public transportation is inadequate and inconvenient, we waste time every day stuck in slow traffic. With more convenient public transportation, the roads are more clear for cars, the air is cleaner, and people don't have to spend as much money on gasoline and car maintenance.
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