[leptons]

The datacenter is still heating the atmosphere and consuming enormous amounts of electricity, which also heats the atmosphere. And it still won't solve our global climate disaster and is far more likely to contribute to a lot of bad things happening for humans.

[Schiendelman]

Compared to what? Meat consumption? Land use regulations? This stuff is just not a drop in the bucket in comparison to the decisions we actually tell our government to make.

[doctorwho42]

Compared to any other electrical system.

When these days centers say they use (x) MW/GW, that is all turning into heat, with some additional (%) on top for inefficiencies.

And don't forget, they are literally making the largest natural gas power plants. Which in turn generate a fuck ton of heat to make the power because they burn gas to heat water to turn it into steam to turn a turbine... Which in itself is another +30%-60% of heat on top of what ever number they quote for power because of the inefficiencies.

So for every MW, it's really 1.3-1.6MW of heating, then they use that 1 MW to power the cooling systems or the server clusters. So for every 1MW of power use, it's on the order of 2.3-2.6x of heat generated.

[Schiendelman]

Do you think that meat consumption doesn't release heat equivalent to the caloric input?

[doctorwho42]

And a large amount of the energy for that comes from the sun, not burning fossil fuels.

Again, the scale is the issue at hand. These data centers are consuming more supplies and power for something that is not necessary to human existence

[Schiendelman]

Why do you think you're the best arbiter of what is necessary for others?

[doctorwho42]

Why do you think that the monied interests of billionaires and trillionaires are a better arbiter of what is necessary for humanity?