Remember when a “legitimate argument” peddled against #EVs was the power grid would fail? Too much strain? Oh WOE be to the power lines! Grandma will DIE in her home in August because YOU plugged in!
Yet suddenly we are full steam ahead building #datacenters the size of Manhattan to make banana pics. #AI #slop. And the electric demand will be colossal and constant.
Society and the world needs to stop being fooled and corralled by interests that don’t care about you.
@Virginicus
Moving on to the next bubble.
@shanie It’s a bit of an apples to oranges comparison though, isn’t it. The grid in the first case has to accommodate cars, which could be anywhere: new areas, old areas, apartment parking lots or suburban garages. Data centres can be more optimally located.
Also there’s an investment case for building data centre power generation ”behind the meter”. You probably wouldn’t want the equivalent, where an automaker runs energy to your home charger from their own power plant.
@KerryMitchell Behind-the-meter would be great for most things, unfortunately we already know what data centers are doing. Behind the meter of EV charging station could be racks of solar panels above a parking lot, taking a chunk of the load off during the day.
Data centers, however, have proven that they’d rather use natural gas or oil power plants on premise, wherever that premise may be. Then the water needs.
Not as apples to oranges as it may seem.
EVs are batteries, and can serve a buffer function, in particular if they are decentralized.
So your argument would need to be inverted: Data centres destabilize the grid in any possible setup, while EVs, if used as dynamic elements, can be the solution to grid destabilization.
EV charging stations could probably run on small arrays of solar panels and not even need to be connected to the grid.
@ariaflame @the5thColumnist @shanie
Fast Charging stations can have their own batteries. Avoids expensive upgrades to the electricity lines to cope with peak currents.
Any transition to evs would be slower than it takes to build new renewables. It will be a gradual process over years. Not every car is going to be a ev overnight. Not every ev is going to be changed at the same time.
Most charging happens at home. So distributed. Pairs well with rooftop solar.
Evs are more efficient than fossil fuel vehicles, so you can't just convert the energy used by fossil fuel vehicles.
Where a data centre will need 3 seperate electricity lines from different substations and be drawing large amounts of electricity all the time.
@shanie Without actually questioning the whole dubious EV-makes-the-grid-cry proposition, datacenters can be paired with a power station. They don't necessarily affect the grid like widely distributed tech like light bulbs or refrigerators.
Not an endorsement or whitepaper, just a thought.
@shanie I have been thinking about this while reading about DCs installing engine turbines fed by dirty fuel just to crank out slop.
And those same boosters would be clutching their pearls about the grid because they wanted to keep the status quo wrt cars.
That’s a long way of saying I agree. 🙂
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