Current Affairs Environmental Stuff

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JimmyJeffers said:
Really think you have to be sociopathic scum to be doing this. What’s the point in making sure you put your plastic bottle in the correct bin. People should just start chucking their plastic on the street and dumping outside of MPs houses.
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Lash your plastic bottles in any bin you feel JJ, except the green one. Plastic recycling is a charade at this point, and will always be for some, prob most, families of plastics.

Plastic bottles are often PET which does have at least a chance of being recyclable - it is chemically tractable. But even that is a long way off - the scale and energy balance needed is gigantic.
Can be done on lab scale with an enzyme, which is true sustainability in principle, but prob decades off working on scale (if ever tbh).
 
Black Belt Jones said:
Lash your plastic bottles in any bin you feel JJ, except the green one. Plastic recycling is a charade at this point, and will always be for some, prob most, families of plastics.

Plastic bottles are often PET which does have at least a chance of being recyclable - it is chemically tractable. But even that is a long way off - the scale and energy balance needed is gigantic.
Can be done on lab scale with an enzyme, which is true sustainability in principle, but prob decades off working on scale (if ever tbh).
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Just largely performance ritual isn’t it. Out here they wrap every single thing in plastic. It’s a colossal waste.
 

Chile puts brakes on Google data center over environmental concerns​

THE NEWS​

A Chilean court handed environmentalists a partial win on Tuesday after it ruled Google must revise its application for the construction of a $200 million data center in Santiago in order to take into account the impact of climate change.
Google first received initial authorization of its Cerrillos Data Center in 2020, but the plan was met with fierce resistance from locals who said it would exacerbate the ongoing Chilean drought by using residents’ water supplies to help cool its servers. After a previous court fight, Google revealed the data center would use 7.6 million liters (2 million gallons) of potable water a day. The tech giant later said it would switch to an air cooling system.
But the court ultimately ruled that the initial environmental assessment was still sufficient despite Google’s changes.


Big Tech quietly increasing water usage as AI demand surges​

Source icon

Source:
Financial Times
Microsoft, Google, and Meta have all quietly and significantly raised their water usage to cool down data centers in recent years, coinciding with the development of AI models. Google’s usage increased by 22% over a two year period and Microsoft by 34%, according to 2022 figures — the latest available — as cited by the Financial Times. Requesting 10 to 50 responses on ChatGPT’s older GPT3 model is equivalent to drinking a 500 ml bottle of water — depending on when and where the inputs were prompted — one academic told the FT. OpenAI has remained relatively quiet about its total water usage, but told the outlet that it believes its models will be “helpful in accelerating scientific collaboration and discovery of climate solutions.”
 

Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power​

AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up.​



Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.
In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction. Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma.


The soaring demand is touching off a scramble to try to squeeze more juice out of an aging power grid while pushing commercial customers to go to extraordinary lengths to lock down energy sources, such as building their own power plants.
“When you look at the numbers, it is staggering,” said Jason Shaw, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates electricity. “It makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended up in this situation. How were the projections that far off? This has created a challenge like we have never seen before.”
 
orchard said:

Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power​

AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up.​



Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.
In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction. Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma.


The soaring demand is touching off a scramble to try to squeeze more juice out of an aging power grid while pushing commercial customers to go to extraordinary lengths to lock down energy sources, such as building their own power plants.
“When you look at the numbers, it is staggering,” said Jason Shaw, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates electricity. “It makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended up in this situation. How were the projections that far off? This has created a challenge like we have never seen before.”
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It's a sci-fi movie not done yet which blames AI and technology for the ensuing existential crisis of survival for humanity. In that fuelling the race to the most powerful computer will affect lives long before the malevolent computer system ever gets chance.

Edit: An arms race towards ownership* of the most powerful tech. Same as it ever was...
explosion-boom.gif
 
orchard said:

Amid explosive demand, America is running out of power​

AI and the boom in clean-tech manufacturing are pushing America’s power grid to the brink. Utilities can’t keep up.​



Vast swaths of the United States are at risk of running short of power as electricity-hungry data centers and clean-technology factories proliferate around the country, leaving utilities and regulators grasping for credible plans to expand the nation’s creaking power grid.
In Georgia, demand for industrial power is surging to record highs, with the projection of electricity use for the next decade now 17 times what it was only recently. Arizona Public Service, the largest utility in that state, is also struggling to keep up, projecting it will be out of transmission capacity before the end of the decade absent major upgrades.

Northern Virginia needs the equivalent of several large nuclear power plants to serve all the new data centers planned and under construction. Texas, where electricity shortages are already routine on hot summer days, faces the same dilemma.


The soaring demand is touching off a scramble to try to squeeze more juice out of an aging power grid while pushing commercial customers to go to extraordinary lengths to lock down energy sources, such as building their own power plants.
“When you look at the numbers, it is staggering,” said Jason Shaw, chairman of the Georgia Public Service Commission, which regulates electricity. “It makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended up in this situation. How were the projections that far off? This has created a challenge like we have never seen before.”
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We'll be used to power the machines, like the matrix said. Soon.
 
tsubaki said:
Some good news:

www.theguardian.com

Ulez helped London cut road pollution faster than rest of UK, report says

Exclusive: Sadiq Khan hails ‘remarkable progress’ on air quality, with NO2 pollutants lower last year than in lockdown year of 2020
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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Of no surprise, and people will pick up on anything approaching a poor outcome for the individual with any policy to reduce pollution and then the right wing press run wild with it.

In Liverpool we suffer 2000 excess deaths a year due attributed to air quality, I think London is around 20 000
 
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