[gruez]

>Because it’s a dangerous technology where profit over security can have severe consequences.

Yeah it's far better to have power plants kill a steady stream of people, but in a banal way that's hard to attribute, like coal power plants causing lung cancer.

[JKCalhoun]

No, but hydroelectric works pretty well. There's a reason they recycle aluminum, etc. (power-hungry industries—crypto-mining, ha ha) along the Columbia River, etc.

So build your data centers there. No reason to choose the least evil.

[applied_heat]

Hydro electric as a resource is probably mostly exploited - are there a lot of big hydro projects left to build? If there are they must be difficult or expensive or they would have already been built.

[throwaway173738]

In the Cascades they’re deconstructing dams as the benefits were oversold while the maintenance costs and environmental impacts were underestimated.

[Sabinus]

The Green movement in Australia was started over the successful blocking of a hydroelectric dam. Rivers are usually highly ecologically significant.

[Cthulhu_]

Which is why coal power plants are being shuttered everywhere in favor of gas and renewables (and I suppose nuclear, sometimes).

[croes]

Because the only options are coal or nuclear?

Wind and solar with storage is far better than nuclear.

[2ndorderthought]

It's not nuclear or coal. There is wind, solar, etc.