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submitted 1 month ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 month ago

From what I can tell, datacenters are choosing the expensive things like small-scale gas turbines, a large chunk of the time. Its utter insanity

[-] Cort@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It's completely sane. You just need to realize that the companies building all the new AI data centers didn't think they'll be around for very long. They know they're inflating a bubble, and don't want to make any long term investments. Ultra near-term profits are the only consideration. The people at the top of the companies will be totally fine (or even better off than before)when the bubble pops, and they're the ones making the decisions.

[-] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Small-scale gas power is disgustingly cheap and easy to get a permit for.

That said, it doesn't help that data-centers have been confused for the sort of thing that belongs in/near city-limits - there's limitted room, so solar/wind become difficult, and no city wants to permit a nuclear generator in its domain.

I am all-for banning new natural-gas build-out as well, but I approached this issue here from the state level first, since the article said Illinois, not just Chicago ...

... and again, Pritzker is not to be confused for an ally of the environment or the people, at least not where those conflict with AI and "Quantum Tech". He'll just say his constituents need to use less power at the individual/household level. For goddsakes, pressure the hell out of him, threaten to primary him or whatever, on balcony solar, net metering, and basically every solution that's been brought-up in response to this post.

this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2025
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Climate

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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world.  About 1C of total warming.  Second chart:  about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability.  Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases.  About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

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