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Before and after data centers (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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Original comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1uyyywv/comment/oy3cgd7/

Trees vs. Data Centers

Photo 1: Memphis, TN (top)

Photo 2: Sandston, VA


Photo 3: Abilene, Texas


Photo 4: New Albany, OH


Photo 5: Fayetteville, GA

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[–] 115 points 2 months ago (11 children)

There's all this talk of solar-powered space-based orbital data centers , but they can't be bothered to put up cheaper, simpler, grid-relieving ground-based solar, on the real estate they've already got, when that would start producing some juice like right now? How does this make any sense?

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  • [–] 28 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Because solar on the roof won't even be noticable against their power footprint. Given current practices, each square foot of a datacenter would need about 1,000 times more square footage worth of solar.

    It's just that somehow if they get to go to space, they decide they suddenly just need like two servers in a 'datacenter' instead of thousands. And they need to go to space because Elon says (checks notes) that it's too hard to make more natural gas turbine parts....

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  • [–] 36 points 2 months ago*

    Because solar on the roof won’t even be noticable against their power footprint. Given current practices, each square foot of a datacenter would need about 1,000 times more square footage worth of solar.

    But (as I'm sure you realize) this would mean every watt from on-premises solar could get put to use immediately, no batteries, no power-grid buy-back schemes. Making those solar panels an unusually good investment.

    Unless they're not planning to keep it running for very long.

    It smells un-serious, somehow.

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  • [–] 24 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Even if it's nowhere near a majority of the power, I'm surprised passive cooling from solar plus some electricity isn't worthwhile enough to be universal. It's a small impact, but also cheap enough it'll pay for itself, and many orders of magnitude more efficient than trying to get a datacenter into space, and figure out how to cool it

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  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Especially since they're looking for space for solar installations, farmers have started installing them, power companies and coops. Seems financially stupid to leave that much space unused when solar farms would go right on top.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Just like vaccines, some things need to be done in scale to reach their true effectiveness.

    That one facility will always be as net negative for the grid. But with panels on all the other buildings in the area that aren't a power sap, it would be significantly better.

    We're getting to the point where roof top solar is relatively cheap and worth the effort. I mean, there's fucking fields near me that they clear cut and put ground based solar panels on, and it was profitable enough for the farmers to lease the land, and the company that owns the panels to get their nut. And a lot of those field based panel arrays are equivalent to, if not smaller than the massive Amazon warehouses we have nearby.

    If large corporations pay their fucking taxes and did their fair share of infrastructure investment we wouldn't even be having a conversation about global warming or about where we're going to get energy for fucking stupid worthless data centers. The energy is in the fucking sky it's free goddamn giant nuclear reactor you just need to put panels on top of shit to harvest it.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago*

    At this point in climate change time, it is criminal neglect to 1. clear a forest, 2. build a big steel/concrete box on it and then 3. don't even put a green roof or solar roof. We need to be heading towards climate trials and people deciding this crap today still in companies with a near infinite capital available deserve life in jail without airco.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago

    As long as they continue to spout pie-in-the-sky for-realsies gonna-be-fantastic totally-not-gonna-fall-apart-like-half-Elon's-schemes plans for the future, they don't have to spend ANY money on stuff like ground-based solar panel arrays, and they get more investors who get suckered by the pitch too!

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Solar panels produce 36.6% more energy in space than on earth at noon with ideal atmospheric conditions (clear sky). As it's not always clear and not always day on earth, so I suspect the difference to be 300-400%, plus storage inconvenience.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 months ago

    Devils advocate, I don’t agree with this, but maybe because first to market and innovating quickly gets more money? The solar panels would be a bigger up front cost (they gotta make sure the building is rated for it, buy a bunch of wires if it’s out in a field, etc) than just paying the city for 6 months-3 years of electricity vs how much the return will be in the timed bubble we have?

    I don't think that’s a good business decision unless you think what you're making isn’t going to last…. But maybe they know the bubble will pop and don’t wanna invest long term? It’s just dumb or evil.

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