The Conversation: Using diesel generators to power the AI revolution would kill hundreds of Americans a year. “The exact results varied with each simulation and with a range of assumptions about emissions from diesel generators. But in general, we found that using backup diesel generators this way would cause about 500 more premature deaths per year in the U.S. compared with getting the same […]

“Every act of energy conservation… is more than just common sense: I tell you it is an act of patriotism”*…

But how do we best honor that admonition? The estimable Saul Griffith has observed “We need a proportional quantitative understanding of energy use, for everyone.” Now, Hannah Ritchie (Deputy Editor of Our World in Data and Senior Researcher in the Programme for Global Development at the University of Oxford) rides to the rescue with an elegant tool that compares and quantifies (in both watt-hours and usage cost, in both the U.S, and the U.K.) the energy consumption of different products and activities.

Try it: “Does that use a lot of energy?” from @hannahritchie.bsky.social. Background in her newsletter.

* Jimmy Carter

###

As we watch our wattage, we might send wild birthday greetings to Bernard Frank; he was born on this date in 1902. A conservationist, forester, and wilderness activist, he had a long, engaged career in conservation concerns, especially in the D.C. area, where he was a leader in organizing the Rock Creek Watershed Association which worked to restore and preserve the area around Rock Creek in Washington, D.C., and Maryland and in the effort that lead to the creation of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. He was honored for his work in this region with the naming of Lake Bernard Frank in Derwood, Maryland. But Frank is probably best remembered as one of the eight founding members of The Wilderness Society.

Does that use a lot of energy?

https://hannahritchie.github.io/energy-use-comparisons/

#HackerNews #energyuse #sustainability #technology #comparisons #climatechange

How the brain's activity, energy use and blood flow change as people fall asleep

https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/newsroom/press-releases/research-shows-coordinated-shift-in-brain-activity-while-asleep

#HackerNews #brainactivity #energyuse #bloodflow #sleepresearch #neuroscience

The Register: We’re all going to be paying AI’s Godzilla-sized power bills. “I see a race coming between the bursting of the AI bubble, the cracking of our already overburdened electrical grid, and all of us shivering in the winter and baking in the summertime, as AI-driven costs and brownouts make us miserable in our homes.”

https://rbfirehose.com/2025/10/17/the-register-were-all-going-to-be-paying-ais-godzilla-sized-power-bills/