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2four2 | 7 months ago

A data center is a near-zero contribution to ocean warming.

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burnt-resistor|7 months ago

Where do you think most of the excess energy from anthropogenic climate change is being absorbed? It's measured on a scale of hundreds of 1e21 J, of which each 1 is 1 million 1 Mt nuclear bombs equivalent. We're already at +200 from 1993. Human activity is leading to massive changes in Earth's delicate systems, and data centers folks want to more than double energy production primarily for AI.

stevage|7 months ago

You know if you add enough small things together, they become a big thing, right?

kristjansson|7 months ago

You're not wrong, but not all values of big are equivalent.

e.g. volume of the worlds oceans is ~1e21 L and annual global energy production is ~3e16 Wh = ~1e20 J

1e20/(1e21*4e3) = 0.000025 ΔC

So even all world's energy production dumped into the ocean as waste heat is a minuscule direct effect. It's all in the second order effects of generating that energy...