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phtrivier 2 minutes ago [-]
It's too bad that AI is only going to solve climate change and cure cancer, it would have been great if it could also cure asthma and solve rampant corruption.
Anyway, now that half of HN readers are SpaceX shareholder, directly or indirectly, how do we exercise the supreme power over the company, granted to us by capitalism, to ask the board to replace the turbines by another form of energy production in line with science ?
matwood 59 minutes ago [-]
Buying access to POTUS pays off. Who knew?!
georgemcbay 37 minutes ago [-]
The surprising part of buying off politicians is how absolutely cheap it is relative to the benefits received.
Gigachad 32 minutes ago [-]
Because they are all winning. And you are paying for it.
ProofHouse 6 minutes ago [-]
imagine them laughing through the cigar smoke and brandy as someone proposes this
Gud 2 minutes ago [-]
the olden days overlords at least had some class.
Today they’ll be drinking monsters in their sweatpants, alone probably
luipugs 4 minutes ago [-]
ray liotta laughing gif
6 minutes ago [-]
Terr_ 3 hours ago [-]
Ugh, what violation of local law can't be excused by specious "national security" claims?
> resulting in a corresponding increase in three major air pollutants:
Sometimes I wonder how valuable it would be to go to vulnerable areas (ecologically or socio-economically) and record baseline pollution, noise, etc. readings, simply to give future residents some statistical ammunition against some New Thing ruins the old implicit standard of safety and comfort.
I guess the problem is you don't always know what to measure until it's nearly too late, such as if the problem is a new chemical that needs a particular test to measure, or noise that isn't about raw decibels but causes problems with particular frequencies and harmonics, etc.
x______________ 2 hours ago [-]
>The company, which is now a division of SpaceX, is likely to buy more generators in the coming months or years. In SpaceX’s IPO filing, the company said that it will buy another $2.8 billion worth of gas turbines to power its AI data centers over the next three years. Of that, at least $2 billion are earmarked for “mobile gas turbines.”
SpaceX, the new Tesla... who saw that coming? :(
boothby 1 hours ago [-]
Timnit Gebru was laughed out of town for overlooking research into making LLMs more energy efficient. By the logic used to drag her through the mud, Musk must be a total idiot to be buying so much fossil fuel capacity. Truly, nobody could see this coming. Must be 5d chess.
wernerb 8 minutes ago [-]
Won't the power that is saved not just be used for more LLMs at this stage?
trhway 20 minutes ago [-]
I'd not be surprised if SpaceX/Elon will start manufacturing those turbines. They do have necessary engineering and manufacturing chops.
protocolture 13 minutes ago [-]
Rotating Company
JumpCrisscross 37 minutes ago [-]
> what violation of local law can't be excused by specious "national security" claims?
None. If this continues, the economy pivots to profits to the President.
Sorry, Brit here, I'm confused. Why is the plaintiff here the NAACP?
nerdsniper 16 minutes ago [-]
We are confused here too. Really could be any large enough group I suppose as long as it contains a lot of members living near the turbines.
I suspect because these data centers are usually placed in areas where land and labor are very cheap, which in some/many states are predominantly black(er) areas.
Really though, the USA has been chipping away at the ability for groups like these to show “standing” so its mildly impressive that this case got this far.
toomim 7 minutes ago [-]
Because tribalism. NAACP is lefty, and Musk is righty. So they fight.
watwut 4 minutes ago [-]
You need to have a "standing" to be even allowed to fight in court. The question was completely valid legal question - why they have the legal standing.
MallocVoidstar 16 minutes ago [-]
Memphis is majority black
holistio 45 minutes ago [-]
It's a matter of time before people start rioting against these national and energy security matters also known as data centres.
jmyeet 13 minutes ago [-]
And watch them get charged with terrorism. Anti-nuke protestors who did no real harm were charged under 18 USC 1361 and faced up to 25 years in prison [1]. “Sabotage” here means over $1.000 in damage.
> ORNL’s award-winning ultraclean condensing high-efficiency natural gas furnace features an affordable add-on technology that can remove more than 99.9% of acidic gases and other emissions. The technology can also be added to other natural gas-driven equipment.
Develop an AGR Acidic Gas Reduction add-on part for methane turbines?
Would (Solar Turbines,) consider selling an AGR emissions limiting product or add-on?
FWIU basically no generators have a catalytic converter, because catalytic converters require computer-controlled fuel ignition.
There's also turquoise hydrogen; H Hydrogen from Methane CH4.
westurner 12 minutes ago [-]
> There's also turquoise hydrogen; H Hydrogen from Methane CH4.
But then what do you do with the CO2?
ulfw 6 minutes ago [-]
Anything from Trump's largest financial backer is a matter of national security
sbseitz 58 minutes ago [-]
Sure does pay to rig elections for Trump!
nujabe 56 minutes ago [-]
And Paul Graham wants us to believe you don’t become a billionaire by cheating.
bflesch 6 minutes ago [-]
These self-made stories are total bs, most of them are nepo kids and their family's aristocratic, colonial-era wealth is repatriated to the US through startup investments.
AbramsAi 41 minutes ago [-]
how is it cheating?
seattle_spring 35 minutes ago [-]
You're asking how breaking the law is cheating? If not, can you clarify your question?
charcircuit 21 minutes ago [-]
It's not breaking the law as xAI are using mobile generators.
glaucon 3 minutes ago [-]
As the article mentions under some circumstances trailer mounted generators are not considered stationary and that is the basis of the plaintiffs claim.
MallocVoidstar 14 minutes ago [-]
"Mobile" generators that are sitting in one place and not moving.
charcircuit 6 minutes ago [-]
That is how mobile generators operate in 99% of situations. "Mobile" is referring to how the generator can be transported to different locations to be used where power is needed.
nerdsniper 15 minutes ago [-]
Exactly their point.
fy20 57 minutes ago [-]
Is the plan to use the gas turbines temporarily until the grid connection is upgraded?
cryptonym 17 minutes ago [-]
They don't care much about connecting it to the grid. They'll take whatever is available and cheaper. If gas turbine on trucks are somehow cheaper (reduced regulation, taxation, planning...) than grid, that'll stay as-is in the foreseeable future. Once you spent billions on turbines and gas contracts, you most likely won't connect to the grid overnight.
Forgeties79 46 minutes ago [-]
“Temporarily”
ExoticPearTree 19 minutes ago [-]
It IT there is nothing more permanent than a temporary fix.
That being said, why don’t utilities provide power when it is needed and make peopke wait for months or years on end? I don’t think it is cheaper to run on generators for months/years.
stefan_ 52 minutes ago [-]
Its obviously a permanent fixture. And well, electricity by virtue of having been around for 100+ years as a mass market product has been utterly ossified, saddled with far too onerous regulations and taxes and is being driven by inflexible, uninterested practitioners.
Of course someone will go „its just energy“ and use almost free natural gas. In some places in the US a diesel generator with gas from the pump is likely cheaper too.
iknowstuff 45 minutes ago [-]
Think this applies to Texas ercot? Seems to be doing well, but not sure if its energy market is more free than in other states
arjie 50 minutes ago [-]
The national security and defense arguments are fortunately the only things that protect any forward progress. Without DoD cover, every Starlink launch would be governed by the California Coastal Commission and friends. Frankly, living in the Bay Area, where people use anti-pollution laws to prevent student housing, I think I understand a little the law structure of the United States. It is perhaps analogous to the way Jewish people treat the halakha. The idea being that if you can find a way around the law, it is meant to be operated that way. So students are noise pollution, bike lanes need environmental impact reports while highways don't, solar power is polluting while gas isn't, endangered species genetically identical to common species are discovered when they would block dams, and 50 years of having a Nuclear Regulatory Commission means exactly one reactor approved by them built.
So there's outrage and all that, but this is the fundamental law of the USA: the law is the Word; and all bugs in it are features.
For the most part, I get why this helps the USA. But boy does it feel like there's going to be a reckoning one day.
bxk76 42 minutes ago [-]
Also the law is not static. Things can go back and forth. Out of phase with whatever trends in news cycles. Watch the Germans debating Nuclear phase out over 30 years.
leonidasrup 1 minutes ago [-]
The problem with large scale industry investments like nuclear power plants is that they don't follow easily whatever trends in news cycles. It takes years to build a nuclear power plant, but it takes just a single vote in the parliament to stop it. Or a referendum like in Austria.
So even through some German politicians are currently discussing nuclear phase-in, no investor will invest in nuclear power in Germany, because no investor could be sure that the next or over-next government with participation of German Greens would not again vote for nuclear phase-out.
As much I like some political ideas of German Greens, I understand that for the older generation of Greens, nuclear power is the prime evil which has to banished from face of the Earth and the reason for existence of the German Green party.
Anyway, now that half of HN readers are SpaceX shareholder, directly or indirectly, how do we exercise the supreme power over the company, granted to us by capitalism, to ask the board to replace the turbines by another form of energy production in line with science ?
Today they’ll be drinking monsters in their sweatpants, alone probably
> resulting in a corresponding increase in three major air pollutants:
Sometimes I wonder how valuable it would be to go to vulnerable areas (ecologically or socio-economically) and record baseline pollution, noise, etc. readings, simply to give future residents some statistical ammunition against some New Thing ruins the old implicit standard of safety and comfort.
I guess the problem is you don't always know what to measure until it's nearly too late, such as if the problem is a new chemical that needs a particular test to measure, or noise that isn't about raw decibels but causes problems with particular frequencies and harmonics, etc.
SpaceX, the new Tesla... who saw that coming? :(
None. If this continues, the economy pivots to profits to the President.
I suspect because these data centers are usually placed in areas where land and labor are very cheap, which in some/many states are predominantly black(er) areas.
Really though, the USA has been chipping away at the ability for groups like these to show “standing” so its mildly impressive that this case got this far.
[1]: https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2019/11/20/...
That probably one of the reasons of such a glorious success there.
Shouldn't all methane-powered equipment have this AGR (or similar) new emission reduction technology?
From https://www.ornl.gov/news/add-device-makes-home-furnaces-cle... :
> ORNL’s award-winning ultraclean condensing high-efficiency natural gas furnace features an affordable add-on technology that can remove more than 99.9% of acidic gases and other emissions. The technology can also be added to other natural gas-driven equipment.
Develop an AGR Acidic Gas Reduction add-on part for methane turbines?
Would (Solar Turbines,) consider selling an AGR emissions limiting product or add-on?
ScholarlyArticle: "Nondestructive neutron imaging diagnosis of acidic gas reduction catalyst after 400-Hour operation in natural gas furnace" (2023) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S13858...
FWIU basically no generators have a catalytic converter, because catalytic converters require computer-controlled fuel ignition.
There's also turquoise hydrogen; H Hydrogen from Methane CH4.
But then what do you do with the CO2?
That being said, why don’t utilities provide power when it is needed and make peopke wait for months or years on end? I don’t think it is cheaper to run on generators for months/years.
Of course someone will go „its just energy“ and use almost free natural gas. In some places in the US a diesel generator with gas from the pump is likely cheaper too.
So there's outrage and all that, but this is the fundamental law of the USA: the law is the Word; and all bugs in it are features.
For the most part, I get why this helps the USA. But boy does it feel like there's going to be a reckoning one day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwentendorf_Nuclear_Power_Plan...
So even through some German politicians are currently discussing nuclear phase-in, no investor will invest in nuclear power in Germany, because no investor could be sure that the next or over-next government with participation of German Greens would not again vote for nuclear phase-out.
As much I like some political ideas of German Greens, I understand that for the older generation of Greens, nuclear power is the prime evil which has to banished from face of the Earth and the reason for existence of the German Green party.