@brewsterkahle The biggest challenge is that solar doesn't produce power around the clock. To make a data center truly energy independent, you'd need an enormous amount of battery storage or another backup source for cloudy days and nighttime. That adds a lot to the cost.

@brewsterkahle @rbreich Take that thought one more step… municipalities that allow for such a self-powered data center should require them to over generate 25% of their needs and feed that back into the grid to reduce the cost of electricity to their citizens. Can only use eco-friendly power gen, using it for heat pumps in lieu of water for cooling, and cap noise to some reasonable dB at 100 ft. And they have to plant trees all around it to hide it.

@brewsterkahle "gigawatts of solar infrastructure sounds like a win to me" they sound like a win to me if they're used by everyone - not by big tech for huge facilities that annoy their neighbors and raise their power bills and stress levels because of the noise.

how is the discourse on this so lacking in empathy?

@brewsterkahle that's a cool idea actually. Ban datacentres from connecting to the grid; they're free to develop their own energy infrastructure

@brewsterkahle

In some jurisdictions, it's faster (not cheaper) to start a gas turbine plant, and in other jurisdictions solar/battery is encumbered with fairly paranoid local regulations (like fears the batteries will -- somehow -- pollute groundwater).

They'd still be thirsty for cooling water, too. At SIGNIFICANT extra expense, solar-powered heat pumps might work.

Probably the easiest sell is to get the VCs to recognize the solar/battery infrastructure as a backup business plan, in case the AI bubble pops.

@brewsterkahle

This is too logical for fascists.

@brewsterkahle What if we built all that solar, but omitted the datacenters?

@brewsterkahle you would still have noise pollution and water pollution and excess heat at the very least.

@brewsterkahle It does, but the owners are soaking in oil investments, too, or they'd have started out with solar farms. They don't want them. They want the climate out of control.

@brewsterkahle
…and add heat / cool pumps…