[HN Gopher] 'Three New York Cities' Worth of Power: AI Is Stress...
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'Three New York Cities' Worth of Power: AI Is Stressing the Grid
Author : sbuttgereit
Score : 63 points
Date : 2024-09-29 18:44 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| Spivak wrote:
| https://archive.ph/rS3ze
|
| > American Electric Power, which owns the line, has proposed a
| new, higher electricity rate for data centers and cryptocurrency
| miners that would lock them in as customers for a decade. The
| companies are balking.
|
| Look at that! Net Neutrality comes to the electrical wire. They
| could have charged different rates based on
| industrial/residential or volume but that wouldn't be optimal
| rent extraction.
|
| This is actually a really great article about the weird contract
| dynamics of large power customers and the chicken-egg problem of
| needing commitment for a certain amount of guaranteed spend to
| justify the cost of servicing them. It has nothing at all to do
| about AI.
| XlA5vEKsMISoIln wrote:
| Comparing this to net neutrality just poisons the well when
| discussing NN. Internet service providers being able to
| arbitrarily adjust pricing based on data source stifles
| competition. Is there competition in the power supply industry
| where a client can pick their source? Well, aside from having
| their own generation. In this case transfer _is_ the service
| and if one day huge demand cluster disappears the capacity for
| it is left to rust.
| Spivak wrote:
| I don't think your point disagrees with mine. Charging based
| on demand is fine, requiring take-or-pay contracts when your
| request requires expensive grid upgrades is fine. Charging
| more because it's a datacenter as opposed to heavy industry,
| not fine. That's the part that mirrors NN.
|
| But to directly answer your question, yes there is
| competition. In most states, Ohio being one of them, you can
| choose who provides your power generation. And since
| companies are shopping states for where to build data centers
| AEP has a lot of competition for delivery.
| motohagiography wrote:
| https://archive.is/rS3ze
|
| how is this stressing a grid that has to shed huge amounts of
| load to maintain availability off peak? instead of shedding the
| load, just price it effectively and the demand will even out and
| be a more efficient use of the fuel or generating station. the
| problem with our energy infra is a lack of consistent demand, and
| both AI and proof of work create the demand and a consumer of
| last resort that would make generation way more efficient.
|
| afaik, the main compute load is done in training, not in the
| queries. this article sounds like astroturfing a pretext for
| regulation under the auspices of "climate."
|
| also, the diminishing value of cash is accelerating so taking
| todays dollars and putting them into tomorrow's energy is
| probably the most fundamentally sound economic use of capital
| today.
|
| power generators were loaded with debt and used as public sector
| slush funds (in canada where they were nominally publicly owned)
| and now the companies are not very productive because they have
| to pass on the debt service cost to consumers, and prevent anyone
| from entering the market to offer competitive service that would
| interfere with that debt service. if you build new energy infra,
| you need to protect it from managers piling it with debt to loot
| it, but if you solve that real problem, demand is not a
| "problem," it's the most valuable thing in the universe.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| There's a saying I've heard that this reminded me of, "if you owe
| the bank two dollars, that's your problem, but if you owe the
| bank two billion dollars, that's the bank's problem." I think
| it's relevant because it shows how responsibility shifts as
| things scale. If you owe the bank a little money then you are
| just a regular customer and you deal with the bank's policies.
| But if you are a big player then it's up to the bank to negotiate
| with you and come to mutually agreeable terms.
|
| These companies that have many big data centers are now big
| players. If they are stressing the grid they will need to be part
| of the solution in expanding the capacity and infrastructure,
| either by paying more to the electric companies or by including
| power infrastructure in their vertical integration. Microsoft has
| the right idea by investing in Three Mile Island, I think other
| big players will do similar things.
| boricj wrote:
| Unlike banks, grids have an obvious solution to this problem:
| stop supplying these players with energy when the grid is at
| significant risk of a black out.
| brookst wrote:
| Are you suggesting it should be illegal for these players to
| buy energy on the open market?
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| the grid gets to choose how it prioritizes power. if they
| want too much power at a time the grid doesn't have enough
| to go around, they're likely fairly early on the cutting
| block
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Sorry hospitals, these AI jerks have more money! /s
| dylan604 wrote:
| AI jerks will just start putting big red crosses on their
| buildings, open one 10'x10' space in their facility with
| some barely passed the exams to get a license type of
| doctor and claim it to be a medical facility of some
| sort. Just like other hospitals, they'll have a shortage
| of beds.
|
| I'm only half joking as from what I've seen of those
| involved, I would not put this type of consideration past
| them.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I'm sure they'd then be on here saying such a thing is
| legal and exactly what law intended. /s
| kazen44 wrote:
| No, but we should have a discussion about if it is worth it
| to expense so much energy for something with very little
| hard, real use case. Al be it bitcoin or LLM's.
|
| there is a lot of money behind AI, but i have yet to see
| any of them actually get us a use case which work reliably.
|
| Not to mention, AI is fun and all, but that energy could be
| far better spend making the economy less reliant on fossil
| fuel.
| voidfunc wrote:
| > there is a lot of money behind AI, but i have yet to
| see any of them actually get us a use case which work
| reliably.
|
| Classic HN. You personally can't see the value of X
| therefore the entire market for X is wrong.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| For emergencies, there are already methods to shut off
| power to low priority businesses. And say, keep hospitals
| open.
|
| And, if you want to pay, you can pay a premium to have more
| 'secure' power. This is an option today, already. No need
| for any discussion about markets and 'government is holding
| back the free market'. There is already a market to pay for
| premium power. And the utilities can charge AI customers
| more if they want.
| kazen44 wrote:
| this is actually a major problem in the netherlands at
| the moment.
|
| a part of the energy grid cannot handle the load being
| generated by all the solar being deployed, and upgrading
| the grid takes years. In the meantime, bussinesses and
| even households simply are not getting a new power
| connection unless they are deemed of enough importance.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| If upgrading the grid takes years then invest until it
| doesn't take years.
|
| There have been many years of build up to solar power. If
| the people running the grid haven't done their job then
| replace them with people who can.
| mattmanser wrote:
| The suggestion is that they can buy it at certain times,
| but not when the grid is nearing capacity. And yes, that's
| a perfectly reasonable thing for a society to decide.
|
| It's shared infrastructure, mainly paid for by public
| funds. If a government decides the priority should be the
| millions over the few, that's what happens in a functioning
| government.
|
| Or they can pay for their own power stations and
| infrastructure to be built.
| brookst wrote:
| They _do_ contract for capacity in advance, which enables
| suppliers to plan for demand.
| notatoad wrote:
| yes.
|
| there is not and should not be an "open market" for power.
| the sale of electricity from the power grid is highly
| regulated, and for good reason. delivery to residential
| customers and essential services should always be
| prioritized over industrial bulk purchasers.
|
| bulk purchasers already have the opportunity to use power
| sources that are not connected to the grid, if they want to
| use grid power they should be prioritized according to
| their benefit to society, not their cash on hand.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Charge them more until it's worth it.
|
| And sure, tell them they get disconnected first when
| there's a shortage. But a hard block is worse than taking
| their money and using it for improvements.
| qeternity wrote:
| > they should be prioritized according to their benefit
| to society
|
| The fact that they have the capability to pay for and
| consume this power is the strongest signal that they
| _are_ indeed providing value to society. The money comes
| from somewhere. If that turns out not to be the case,
| they have the strongest incentive to stop.
|
| But this sort of rationing at the hands of some
| regulatory body has historically proven to be a far more
| deadly cure than whatever the presumptive disease was.
| notatoad wrote:
| right, hospitals and farmers should just massively raise
| their prices so they can better compete with crypto
| miners, that will make the world better...
|
| money is not a good indicator of value provided to
| society. there is a ton of ways where it falls apart, and
| there are a lot of people devoted to finding the ways
| they can collect the most money while providing the least
| benefit to society.
| qeternity wrote:
| > money is not a good indicator of value provided to
| society
|
| Ok, it's the least worst system we have...unless you have
| an alternative. I'm all ears.
| brookst wrote:
| Usually these things end up with "well obviously my
| personal priorities are objectively true..."
| qeternity wrote:
| Yes but the aggregate of every individual's personal
| priorities are by definition society's priorities...
| vundercind wrote:
| Spotting and stopping the odd case where it's gone
| haywire doesn't mean ditching market pricing across the
| board. You can just fix (maybe even only temporarily!)
| the part that's doing wacky, undesirable stuff.
| jltsiren wrote:
| That argument would require regular socialization and
| redistribution of all wealth. The market does not
| prioritize what the society needs, because individual
| needs are weighted by wealth and income.
|
| In a Western society, everyone's needs are supposed to be
| equally important. We often don't even make majority
| decisions, because we assume that the constitutional
| rights of a minority are more important than what the
| majority finds reasonable.
| qeternity wrote:
| > The market does not prioritize what the society needs
|
| What do you think prices do? What do you think income is
| reflective of?
|
| Companies that make lots of money provide things that
| lots of people are willing to pay for. This is the
| reflection of what people need. Exxon makes money because
| people want to stay warm. Cargill makes money because
| people want to eat. Apple makes money because people want
| to be entertained. Eli Lilly makes money because people
| don't want to die.
|
| What do you know that millions of people all acting in
| their own self interest don't know?
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Parent is saying that people with more money can affect
| the price signal more. That simply isn't as fair as
| weighting individuals equally. A lot of people don't like
| the economic impacts of this, so they tend to justify it
| rather than accept it as valid criticism.
| jltsiren wrote:
| A weighted average can be very different from the
| unweighted average.
|
| In our current society, children can benefit from the
| wealth and social connections of their parents. That
| gives the needs of some people additional weight in the
| market without any actual merit. To get rid of that
| market distortion, children would have to be raised
| collectively without any contact to their parents.
|
| There is a lot of wealth that has been created with
| business practices that later became illegal. Because we
| prefer not to punish people for actions that were legal
| at the time, we let people keep that wealth. But if we
| want the market to prioritize the needs of the current
| society, such wealth would have to be confiscated.
|
| A society where the market actually reflects the needs of
| the society would be incredibly dystopian.
| weard_beard wrote:
| AI Overview:
|
| The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has many
| accomplishments, including: Reducing air pollution The
| EPA has reduced air pollution by regulating auto
| emissions, banning pesticides, and cracking down on
| factory and power plant emissions. New cars are now 99%
| cleaner than 1970 models, and the EPA's efforts have led
| to a decrease in smog and asthma cases.
|
| Cleaning up toxic waste The EPA has cleaned up toxic
| waste through the Comprehensive Environmental Response,
| Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund), which
| provides funding for cleaning up abandoned waste dumps.
| Protecting the ozone layer The EPA has protected the
| ozone layer by reauthorizing the Clean Air Act in 1990 to
| phase out chemicals that deplete it.
|
| Increasing recycling The EPA has increased recycling.
| Revitalizing brownfields The EPA has revitalized
| brownfields, which has led to increased property values,
| reduced impervious surface expansion, and reduced
| residential VMT.
|
| Reducing water use The EPA's WaterSense program has
| helped Americans save water, with a cumulative savings of
| 8.7 trillion gallons as of the end of 2023. Banning
| cancer-causing pesticides The EPA has banned or
| restricted many cancer-causing pesticides, including
| heptachlor, chlordane, EDB, daminozide, and chlorpyrifos.
|
| Testing schools for asbestos The EPA required all primary
| and secondary schools to be tested for asbestos starting
| in 1982.
|
| Rating energy efficiency of appliances The EPA introduced
| the Energy Star program in 1992 to rate the energy
| efficiency of household appliances. EPA History:
| Documents about Agency Accomplishments | US EPA Nov 17,
| 2023
|
| Generative AI is experimental.
| gtvwill wrote:
| Markets are neither open nor free, they are closed and
| regulated. So yes, block their purchasing, tell them to
| sort their own. Here's the thing, do you cut off one
| customer when supply is tight or do you risk political
| suicide by kicking the bucket to millions of small
| customers? Power utility companies will kick one customer,
| if they don't they will lose their social license to
| operate and get legislated out of business.
| burningChrome wrote:
| I would say the same is true for crypto miners and their
| increasing need for increasing kilowatt power to solve their
| algo's.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| Banks have an obvious solution as do grids. Build their
| reserves and infrastructure and scale to their biggest
| customers. A stressed scale out system just requires more
| scaling. It feels weird to say any other solution, especially
| when the customer is a paying customer.
| atoav wrote:
| It only feels weird if you consider paying customers
| getting what they want has to be of the highest priority.
|
| Others who are regular readers of IPCC publications might
| value the survival of big parts of earths habitable zones
| and the most densly populated costal areas higher. But
| priorities differ.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| I think many people read my statement and flipped who I
| thought the banks vs customers are. If you owe the bank $2
| billion, that's their problem- meaning they are exposed and
| could fail if they don't negotiate to cover that exposure. If
| an AI company needs a bunch of power and can't compute
| without it, then they are exposed and need to negotiate to
| make sure the power companies can supply it- they are no
| longer regular customers.
|
| In my thought process, an analogous statement might be, "if
| you ask for 10 kilowatts from the power company, that's the
| power company's problem. If you ask for 10 megawatts, that's
| your problem. If you (an AI company) ask for a historic
| amount of power and your business fails if you don't get it,
| then it's your responsibility to ensure the grid can supply
| that much power.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| > I think many people read my statement and flipped who I
| thought the banks vs customers are.
|
| Frankly, that's because your analogy is not great. Feels
| shoehorned in. And then you didn't do a good job in your
| original post to clarify.
| ginko wrote:
| But what if I want to ask chatgpt how to conserve power
| during a potential blackout?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I think you might misunderstand your analogy. If you owe the
| bank two billion dollars it's their problem because a missing 2
| billion dollars is large enough to be painful for the bank.
| 7952 wrote:
| And the bank stands to lose far more money than the company
| they have lent to who will just fold.
|
| In renewable energy it is actually common for the funding
| institutions to be paid a cut of the profits and to have no
| recourse to repossess assets. They take all the risk because
| they provide all the funding. The job of the actual developer
| is to provide a project worth funding.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| And it will go from 9% to 90% over the century. Big tech
| companies might as well avoid the middleman and evolve into the
| power generation business, although it's not hard with an open
| design of a solar farm in the desert.
| goda90 wrote:
| Unless we come up with newer more efficient algorithms and
| specialized hardware for implementing AI.
| talldayo wrote:
| _glances at Bitcoin mining ASICs_
|
| Any day, now.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Bitcoin is definitionally inefficient to mine. That's the
| whole point.
| talldayo wrote:
| The point is that difficulty is adjusted in accordance
| with network saturation to prevent a 51% attack. The
| network is not inherently inefficient unless you're
| attempting to monopolize it - you are still rewarded for
| using more efficient mining methods than your
| competitors.
|
| Which leads us to the GPUs. For a while everyone said
| ASICs (and the courageous ones, FPGAs) were the future of
| mining because they were inherently more efficient than
| GPU hardware could ever be. But it turns out that it's
| the other way around - mass-manufactured GPUs have access
| to more efficient silicon than any FPGA on the market
| could hope for. Similarly, AI chips that want to beat
| Nvidia on efficiency terms first have to climb a mountain
| of power usage that is inherent to their exponentially
| less-dense hardware.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Giant buildings in the desert with solar cells on top. No need
| for distribution lines. How many people are actually necessary
| to staff one once it is up and running? Bury the building with
| the desert soil for insulation.
| qeternity wrote:
| I think you massively overestimate the generation capacity of
| a PV cell. If you cover all the surface area of a datacenter
| with PV cells, it will generate a small fraction of the power
| required.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I didn't illustrate the thought clearly. I didn't mean that
| the building's roof would be the only source of PV cells.
| The solar farm could grow all around the data center, but
| the roof would not need be a hole in the farm.
| OutOfHere wrote:
| Your idea could perhaps work only in space, a bit closer to
| the sun, operating at peak power generation 24x7. On the
| ground it takes a lot more area in panels than is used by a
| datacenter.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Okay, so have AI build a nuclear plant in the desert so
| when they run it at 115% on the reactor, it's in the desert
| away from people. It's not like they'd be concerned about
| downwinders. Put the plant and the data center right next
| to each other again to avoid distribution lines. If they
| want power, make them figure it out. It should not _EVER_
| mean that normies have to sacrifice because AI wants
| jeffbee wrote:
| 100 years ago was there this much bad-faith handwringing about
| all the new roads they needed?
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| You could go on newspapers.com (free for 7 days) and look at
| those old papers. I know that the Transcontinental Railroad was
| intensely controversial.
|
| What's "bad-faith" about it?
| qeternity wrote:
| OP is saying the opposite: the TCR required huge investment,
| and was massively speculative, with a huge bubble ensuing.
| But rail travel did revolutionize the world, and few people
| sat around asking whether or not it was worth it.
| Cupertino95014 wrote:
| TCR could have been justified by everyone having massive
| faith in the future, as OP is suggesting happened with
| roads. But you're quite wrong that "few people sat around
| asking whether or not it was worth it", as _Iron Empires_
| details:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Iron-Empires-Robber-Railroads-
| America...
|
| it was hugely controversial in Congress.
|
| I don't happen to know about roads, since that wasn't one
| single thing. But I doubt they happened because of blind
| faith in the future, either -- it was probably more
| businesses demanding roads NOW. So the argument that no one
| questioned them is dubious at best.
| quantified wrote:
| What do mean by "they"? EDIT: who do you mean by "they"?
| (Rephrasing since some readers don't get that intent of the
| original question.) The handful of corporations interested in
| transport? Roads were a broad-based need. Roads have been
| built, used, maintained for thousands of years. The interstate
| highway system came from a government initiative, if there was
| a "they" it was broad-based enough to be "us". Railroads served
| needs that had existed for a long time and it was very clear
| what their use was from the time they were conceived, and there
| were more than a handful of participants in the movement of
| goods and people, since producers wanted greater reach and
| consumers wanted better access. By contrast to the very small
| number of "they" asking for more elecricity for data centers.
| How many people involved in the discussion are asking for the
| AI companies to be getting this juice?
| jeffbee wrote:
| "They" is a third-person pronoun in English. It refers, in
| many cases, to a plurality of subjects, often people, not
| including the speaker. If the speaker is included then it
| would have been "we" instead, but in this case I was not
| alive 100 years ago so I use "they" instead of "we".
|
| Hope that helped. Best of luck learning English!
| raldi wrote:
| Can you believe these "mammals", burning energy around the
| clock to keep their blood warm all the time?
| sapphicsnail wrote:
| Are these AI companies already profitable or is it speculation
| that's causing them to get a ton of funding? AI is such a
| polarizing subject and I find it difficult to sift through all
| the hype and hate surrounding it.
| Prbeek wrote:
| They generated a whooping three billion dollars last year.
| lolinder wrote:
| But what was the cost of producing that revenue? At what
| point do they expect to break even on their investment?
|
| I can very quickly generate a lot of revenue if my investors
| will let me buy eggs at $0.50 each and resell them for $0.05,
| but I don't think I'd get any bites unless I could explain
| how that enterprise will eventually turn a profit.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| In 2021, SoftBank is very interested in your egg selling
| company.
| stavros wrote:
| After all, you can't make an omelet without breaking the
| bank on some eggs.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| If you can find a way to sell billions of dollars of
| eggs, even at a loss, people will invest. At scale you
| can increase the price of eggs, make the eggs cheaper,
| etc. Obviously the fact your eggs are artificially cheap
| is helping you sell them, but that won't be all there is
| to you as a seller.
|
| People underestimate how hard it is to sell things: you
| could have the cure to cancer in your hands today and
| still need to lose mllions to get anywhere with it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| But this is what the food delivery companies were (are?)
| doing. This is what Uber is doing. This is pretty much what
| every VC funded company does. They burn through the
| investors' money (because who cares it's not their personal
| money) until they get a foothold.
| lolinder wrote:
| That's what they _were_ doing when money was free. Money
| is no longer free, unless you 're an AI company.
| qeternity wrote:
| > They burn through the investors' money (because who
| cares its not their personal money) until they get a
| foothold.
|
| Otherwise known as investing. Sometimes it works.
| Sometimes it doesn't. And the last 20 years has been
| chockfull of excesses absolutely. But Uber is profitable
| these days, and has genuinely transformed how people get
| around. It looked like a negative unit margin dog until
| it didn't.
| 1986 wrote:
| Otherwise known as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_
| %28pricing_policy%29
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| it does seem very likely that $ per token of inference (at
| fixed quality) will continue to go down rapidly as hardware
| and software continues to improve.
| rodgerd wrote:
| It's better than that, OpenAI are stealing the eggs and
| lobbying to make egg theft legal, so long as you only steal
| eggs from small farmers and back yards. Because they can,
| by their own admission, never stay in business if they have
| to pay for the eggs.
| mikeocool wrote:
| OpenAI is expecting $3.7 billion in revenue this year, and is
| going to lose $5 billion, according to this article:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/27/technology/openai-
| chatgpt...
|
| So they are currently printing 1 dollar bills at a cost of
| $2.35 each.
| p1necone wrote:
| Losing money on every transaction, but making it up with
| scale!
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Cosmo Kramer: It's a write-off for them.
|
| Jerry: How is it a write-off?
|
| Cosmo Kramer: They just write it off.
|
| Jerry: Write it off what?
|
| Cosmo Kramer: Jerry, all these big companies, they write
| off everything.
|
| Jerry: You don't even know what a write-off is.
|
| Cosmo Kramer: Do you?
|
| Jerry: No, I don't.
|
| Cosmo Kramer: But they do. And they're the ones writing
| it off.
| qeternity wrote:
| Point to one single transformative invention that was
| accretive from day one. The ChatGPT moment isn't even two
| years old. I don't know for certain whether any of these
| investments are going to work out, but all of the current
| cash burn is forward looking. It may all come crashing
| down, but this is not the right analysis.
| mikeocool wrote:
| This certainly the model that basically all VC funded
| tech companies use. Though OpenAI is notable, because I
| don't think we've seen another company burn this much
| money this fast.
|
| Not a value statement on whether is this is right or
| wrong.
| qeternity wrote:
| This predates modern VC by centuries. Early trade routes
| which connected humanity across continents were highly
| speculative, requiring huge amounts of capital, and were
| only profitable years later.
| Maxamillion96 wrote:
| That's wrong. A single load of pepper was enough to pay
| for the successful voyage and multiple lost ships.
| qeternity wrote:
| Yes, that single load took years. It required huge
| amounts of speculative capital, years of fruitless
| exploration, and as you say, multiple failed expeditions
| before it succeeded.
|
| That is my point.
| Maxamillion96 wrote:
| all inventions are accretive from day one, in the
| majority of historical bubbles the speculation was built
| on top of already profitable technologies but there was
| always one or two firms that were profitable to begin
| with. Modern bubbles (AI, Metaverse,Crypto) are
| speculative from the word go, there isn't a single
| company that's profitable in those verticals.
| treis wrote:
| That's not right. They're paying $2.35 to get a $1 per year
| revenue stream.
| idunnoman1222 wrote:
| It is the first meaningful demand growth this century for the
| electricity industry
|
| How is this bad? Are the utilities just lazy?
| jsnell wrote:
| But that's what the article is about.
|
| The utilities are being asked to make massive speculative
| investments in transmission infrastructure, but are dubious
| that the demand will actually be there when those projects
| finish in half a decade, and they'll be left holding the bag.
| kazen44 wrote:
| Also, infrastructure investment has a very long return on
| investment. (power plants for instance need to run decades to
| make back their profits, especially nuclear power plants.
|
| Other forms of energy generation come and massive ecological
| costs. Are we really prepared to spend this much energy on a
| speculative technology? especially when it is destroying the
| planet while doing so?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| we should already be spending a ton on renewables and
| transmission capacity.
|
| this is a good way to ensure emissions become sustainable
| qeternity wrote:
| This is why long term offtakes exist. The customer can prove
| their conviction and share in the risk. Extremely
| commonplace.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| that doesn't help too much if the utilities expect the
| companies to be around in 10 years
| cr__ wrote:
| > How is this bad?
|
| The power is being used wastefully.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/rS3ze
| flanked-evergl wrote:
| The west needs to get over nimbyism and build infrastructure
| again. It's frankly embarrassing how much the west has crippled
| itself and then exported manufacturing to counties with much less
| regulation.
| wpm wrote:
| It's an easy thought to have. I live in one of the US's larger
| metro areas in a leafy, former streetcar suburb then annexed,
| neighborhood. Near me, just down the street, is an old
| industrial plot that supplies materials and tools for other
| industrial uses. Their trucks are large. Their lots are small.
| Each day is a dance of large flatbeds loading up for the next
| day, moving in and out of the lots, and other customers and
| their large flatbeds coming to stock up. Many leave by driving
| down the street in front of my house.
|
| Is it annoying? Yes. Their trucks are heavy enough to shake the
| house when they go over a bump. They are loud as hell too. [1]
|
| Do I want to shut the company down? Of course not. They are my
| neighbors, for better or for worse. I have to try to make the
| relationship work. They employ dozens of people and make it so
| other companies can build things easier in my city.
|
| The instinct, however, is to think "I wish they would f** off
| with their big dumb trucks and their blocking traffic and their
| dangerous blahblahblah. I'm fine with industrial supply
| companies, but not in my backyard!". It takes an effort to stop
| yourself and remember to recognize their value. I could lose my
| job tomorrow, and maybe walk down the street and ask them if
| they need another set of hands moving gas cylinders around. I
| might one day need their services, or need the services of
| someone who needs theirs.
|
| 1. I wish the federal government would regulate the amount of
| noise pollution coming off some of these vehicles, yes, but
| that isn't a local issue.
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| I believe that chips will get more efficient as they get tuned
| towards AI needs. Also, energy costs will continue to fall as
| they have for thousands of years. Think about this, at one time
| we would have to put a lot of wood or animal matter to get enough
| energy for a few hours of light at night. Now it takes very few
| resources to get enough light for a whole night. It's so
| relatively inexpensive that we can light an area all night
| without having to think twice about the cost.
|
| Energy will get so inexpensive in a few years (10?) from now that
| power consumption by AI will not be a problem.
| hoosieree wrote:
| Heard of the Jevons paradox?
| quonn wrote:
| > Energy will get so inexpensive in a few years (10?)
|
| Any evidence for that? I predict the exact opposite. The price
| of energy will rise.
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