lemurGro
Natasha 
🇪🇺Data Centres
Klaus Frank@Natasha_Jay You forgot the part where they started to use a Jet engine recently to power a datacenter...
Billy O'Neal@agowa338 I mean, jet turbines are more efficient than reciprocating engines. If you're not going to use renewables or nuclear it's better than a lot of options
Glorrion@malwareminigun @agowa338 However, nuclear fission would still raises the issue of how to safely store waste for the next few thousand years...🤔
Technically no. That's more of a capitalism issue than an engineering one. Most of the nuclear waste would still be able to be burned and at the end we'd be left with less than one tincan of waste for the entire world...
It just was cheaper to use new fresh uranium than to recycle the existing one into new fuel rods...
Edit: Often it also was only cheaper because of government subsidies too...
It's just called burning nuclear fuel. You're not literally setting them on fire...
English can be a strange language sometimes.
Billiglarper@malwareminigun @agowa338 @Glorrion
They don't. Each "recycling" iteration to get at the unused Uranium and the Plutonium creates quite a bit of toxic and nuclear waste. And even France only does one iteration of this.
To burn it in one go, you would need a breeder reactor. And they are quite a can of worms with regards to safety, cost and plutonium proliferation.
@billiglarper @malwareminigun @Glorrion
Yep you'd need a breeder. But most of the challenges aren't engineering ones but economic and financial. From a purely scientific stance it is totally doable and manageable.
@Glorrion @agowa338 No, you don't need to store until the Uranium decays: the Uranium is already there. Only until the bits with much shorter half lives decay, which is hundreds of years, not thousands.
And this is a much Much MUCH easier problem to solve than the utility scale storage problem renewables need. There are NIMBY issues of course but that's true of every waste disposal facility.
avatastic 
@Natasha_Jay Data Centers should be required to use power plant style cooling towers, rather than local water sources, so their environmental impact can really be seen.
Inky says "What the hell?!"@avatastic @Natasha_Jay Those cooling towers, and the systems they cool, still draw from local water sources. The big question is the water used, cleaned and released back into the local water system.
Garrett Wollman@InkySchwartz @avatastic @Natasha_Jay The water "used" by data centers is primarily the cooling water *used by the power plants* already. It's not being evaporated on the site of the DC.
@Natasha_Jay Hard agree. But recycle all the same.
Miha Markič@InkySchwartz @Natasha_Jay Sadly a lot of people react with "I won't do it anymore because they don't"
U.Lancier@Natasha_Jay I'm missing the private jets and yachts of the tech bros and oligarchs.
And the smartphones in the hands of the consumers with which they scan the garbage so the AI app may tell them in which bin to sort their waste.
(2nd Edit: Argh. Not German: English, it's „AI“ in English! 😱
Edit: Oorr, autocorrect! KI, not Kid. I explicitly wanted to have the connection between dumb consumers and their use of KI (no: AI!) with its included environmental desaster!)
mart-w@Ulan_KA @Natasha_Jay It would be AI in English :)
JuanPa ☀️🟨☘️🟫💧 Agroecología@Natasha_Jay I really dislike these false dichotomies; they quickly become reactionary. We have to stop using AI, we have to stop watching so much streaming (it pollutes at AI levels), we have to separate our waste, and we have to eat the rich. One thing doesn't negate the other.
GLCSystematic problems require systematic solutions.
Admittedly there is some nuance, but it is certainly not a false dichotomy. A coherent and reasonably nuanced account is at https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/13/consumption-choices/
The corporate thumb weighs heavily on the personal responsibility side, and they do, in fact, hope that they can make it a dichotomy, and get us to choose the less effective side.
The cartoon is important and still not well understood.
Owlor 
@Natasha_Jay Sweden.png
Michael Dexter@Natasha_Jay ALT tag please
Ratboy (reformed dino pirate)@Natasha_Jay
This, but also, those same people are using those services and driving the demand even though they are unaware of the repercussions. We need a major education campaign.
This, but also, those same people are using those services and driving the demand even though they are unaware of the repercussions. We need a major education campaign.
Æ Sea F.Thanks, I got it. Recycling is futile. I won't do it anymore.
@Natasha_Jay @catsalad No no no it needs to be someone taking a picture saying "which bin does this go in?"
Grovewest@Natasha_Jay I had a career dealing with very large databases and high powered servers, mentioned the problems with mega datacenter’s twenty years ago. Was dismissed by “progressive’s” who were at the time in love with social media. Not pleased with having my warnings validated but sorry it’s likely too late now.
Face Thumb@Natasha_Jay Just needs some billionaires in private jets overhead.
Poujol 𝖱𝗈𝗌𝗍 ✅alt-text: Steam or smoke ?
Tristan Nitot✓
The Blue Phoenix@Natasha_Jay As a bird, I hate all that pollution. Why can't we have clean skies like we did in the Pleistocene?