this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2024
107 points (98.2% liked)

News

23389 readers
2969 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

One of the largest solar projects in the U.S. opened in Texas on Friday, backed by what Google said is the largest solar electricity purchase it has ever made.

Google executive Ben Sloss said at the ribbon cutting, about two hours south of Dallas, that the corporation has a responsibility to bring renewable, carbon-free electricity online at the same time it opens operations that will use that power. Google expects to spend $16 billion through 2040 globally to purchase clean energy, he said.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, who attended, said the solar project is a posterchild for the administration’s efforts to incentivize manufacturers and developers to locate energy projects in the U.S.

“Sometimes when you are in the middle of history, it’s hard to tell, because you are in the middle of it,” she said. “But I’m telling you right now that we are in the middle of history being made.”

SB Energy built three solar farms side by side, the “Orion Solar Belt,” in Buckholts, Texas. Combined, they will be able to provide 875 megawatts of clean energy. That is nearly the size of a typical nuclear facility. In total, Google has contracted with clean energy developers to bring more than 2,800 megawatts of new wind and solar projects to the state, which it says exceeds the amount of power required for its operations there.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Can do both because their stupid AI will probably suck more energy then those panels will produce.

[–] partial_accumen 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Even if that is the case it would still be positive because it is carbon-neutral. We can still say its a waste of power, but it wouldn't be warming the planet.

[–] Alexstarfire 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Except for the cost of building all of it, sure.

[–] partial_accumen 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Except for the cost of building all of it, sure.

I'm not getting the point you're making with this statement. The cost is Google's alone. There's no cost to you or me. How are we losing?

Additionally, support for large scale solar projects means creating and jobs and skills that can build out other large scale solar projects.

[–] Alexstarfire 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not literal cost, environmental cost. Even if the power is carbon neutral, the things it powers didn't just appear magically.

[–] partial_accumen 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Err, sure, but I'm not sure what that has to do with this. The alternative for Google is to power it with carbon based power. How is that better?

[–] Alexstarfire 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Or, maybe don't make AI hardware when it consumes that much power? I don't really care about their profits.

I'd rather companies not contribute even more to global warming.