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AI Needs So Much Power, It’s Making Yours Worse
(www.bloomberg.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2024
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Once again, not the faulty of the technology. Don't blame your shitty infrastructure on ai
If you're doing a massive load increase, build out emissions-free generation to match. Some mix of wind, solar, batteries, nuclear, and geothermal would do fine. Otherwise, don't do the big load increase.
Renewables won't exactly help harmonics, on the contrary, especially solar. This is an issue of insufficient mitigation mechanisms, probably on the supply side as computer PSUs are generally quite well-behaved loads: Drawing lots of electricity, on its own, does not harmonic distortion make.
If it is on the consumer side utilities need to start charging commercial customers for distortions just like they're charging for blind current. If it's on the supply side, utilities need to require large solar installations to have proper filters, and have their own mechanisms to mop up the rest. Generally the US should start having a not shoddy electricity grid, brown- and blackouts and you call yourself a developed country? We don't even have a (colloquial) word for brownout over here!
That all said, yeah the AI hype gotta stop. That doesn't mean that you should blame them for everything.
I just want to say I've never had a brownout in my part of the US, and the only blackouts we've had are due to weather or a car hitting a pole or something. And our electricity is inexpensive.
I've mostly heard of these issues in California and Texas, because of unique issues with their power utilities.
And yeah, I think both the AI hype and disdain are stupid. It's a tool that does less than proponents claim and more than detractors claim. Don't blame all our problems on it, and don't suggest it'll solve all our problems.