Comment by mystraline
7 hours ago
One could absolutely design data centers that were energy positive and ecologically decent (with respects to pollution).
For a known amount of data enter power, dedicate 125% of power in solar and battery.
Need cooling? Use liquid geothermal loops. Or radiate energy back into space. We know frequencies that do not reflect in atmo.
Acoustic pollution is another area. Acoustic tiles, building plans, and natural noise barriers are also of utmost importance too.
We need more compute. Plain banning is not the way. Demanding highly ecological and conserving solutions is.
It's not plain banning. It's a moratorium until 2027. I think it's sensible policy given this craze is at the peak of a hype cycle and there's been a lot of investigative reporting on shady deals around hyperscaler infrastructure
For cooling you can also use a heat exchanger and dump it into a river or an ocean or so.
Closed loop heat exchange costs more electricity. It's not a free lunch that data center designers are overlooking.
That is of course true, but it is at least not a totally unreasonable practice, unlike using fresh water straight off the grid as a cooling source.