I just wish more politicians would say the same thing.

Rust-MyEnemy is stll out there!

scotte

Uh, wait, is this Jalopnik or Slashdot??

Bad Juju

Turboner

keicar

www.energy.gov

The tab is labeled "energy sources". If you start there you can get info that'll lead you to all sorts of info... kind of a starter kit if you'd like to research more.

The main part I quoted was the page about solar power myths.

DustyButt

Mokers

From the studies I have read, it could take an area the size of 20% of the united states to provide half of our energy. Obviously, that's a big gap between where you and I are coming from (usually the studies I have read are talking about PV), so you probably see my concern with your plan.

Here is the link to the study (granted the NPG have their own biases, but it is a starting point): [www.npg.org]

Doing a little googling, I found information on CSP. Seems very interesting, especially considering the ramifications it may have for other planetary concerns (ie water shortages). I am too lazy to do the math comparing the kWH for Nevada Solar One and extrapolating it, so it may be true. FYI, the one article I found said it would be an area 92 x 92 miles, not 100 square. That's a significant amount of area, but could be doable, and certainly isn't 20% of our land mass.

[www.cnn.com]

Do you know what the cost per kWH is compared to other renewable sources of energy?

Mokers

camp6ell

piththeelder

I agree with a huge portion of what you're saying but I think the Big Oil companies need to send more of their profit towards greener energies. Instead they're just finding more ways to keep the world hooked on their product. That's the wrong answer!

The problem of dividing the energy is no more complex than building massive oil and gas pipelines, which isn't easy but do-able. Our electrical infrastructure is due for an overhaul. Current power industries and Big Oil need to foot the bill for an upgrade that incorporates the elimination of fossil fuels. The info I posted towards the top regarding solar energy is with CURRENT technologies, but no one wants to pay for it.

Why can't we incorporate green energy supplemented by fossil fuels until battery technology catches up? When battery tech catches up we can then upgrade to an all renewable power grid? The reason they drag their feet is that Big Oil keeps making fossil fuel tech easy and cheap for Power Companies which causes Power Companies to stay the course. The Power Companies make money either way, but they get fat supplements from Big Oil, so it's as they say "cheaper to keep her"

Nuclear is clearly the band aid we need for the short term (10-50 years), but for the mid term and long term (50-150 years) we need to have green sources of energy in place. I don't think fossil fuels are going to run out anytime soon, but if we if we keep using it to mass produce energy... we're f***ed. And, Big Oil laughs all the way to the bank.

So, no. The problem isn't the server using too much power. The real problem is the Big Oil keeps us hooked on fossil fuels. The sooner we act on that front the better off we'll be... worrying about how much electricity a computer uses is only a symptom of a much much greater disease.

DustyButt

A few remarks: We did continue to develop Nuclear power, especially in France, Russia and Japan.
But it hasn't become that much safer, or cheaper. Actually with the current "terrorist threads" Nuclear plants are becoming more dangerous and expensive.

As for the damage coal/ Oil has done to our planet.. I agree, it is horrible, but if we would have had Nuclear plants instead of coal/oil plants... the chance is high that we would have had more than one Chernobyl, which wasn't a nice thing to happen (and actually Chernobyl is still a timebomb and will remain so for many decades)
And let's not forget what to do with the waste... with the few Nuclear plants it is already a problem.. imagine what to do if there were 100 times more Nuclear facilities...

Or do you really think we didn't develop Nuclear Power only because of the powerful Oil companies?

sos10

If people are seeking to punish the oil companies, first thing to do is to stop using what they are selling. This will help those of us in Western Countries because our economies will be able to adapt new technologies to our power needs over the long haul/ In the short term, we'll still be bending over for many years to come, even if any engine over 2.0 L is banned, because there are other countries that will be willing to make up the demand.

This whole computer servers are as bad as SUVs is kind of stupid. This whole movement to turn everything we do in our lives into some sort of carbon equivalent is troubling. And the bigger problem with that is the motivation has more to do with levying taxes than it has to do with saving the environment. If governments can convert everything you do into some unit of carbon, they'll drop a carbon tax on everything, all under the guise of saving the environment.

Solar energy is great, but the thing about the averages people are using is that you can't just take the amount of energy we use and divide it up equally between states. The excess energy North Dakota uses does California no good, and you'll be wasting a ton of energy on transmission. And as somebody said earlier, storing energy is a pain. And remember, the solar energy would need to be effcient enough to power us during the day, but also to store energy that will work at night. And what happens if there is bad weather in an area and they can't generate for a few days? Storing enough energy to last any extended length will be difficult, and it's not like you can just turn up the solar production from the neighboring states. Solar might be efficient enough to augment our energy needs now, but it's not like we just switch overnight. I have much more faith in the near-term for cleaner nuclear and coal than I do for solar energy as a substitute.

Mokers

@elwood: I thought so, thanks. That was the point I was trying to make.

Rust-MyEnemy is stll out there!

Sven, fire up them chainsaws - we're cutting more pulpwood!!!

;)

fawgcutter

hifiguy

Reprocessing can reduce the amount of waste decay storage time from 10,000 years to 300 years or less. That implies the use of fast, and thermal, breeder reactors. TrackpediaCow mentioned this.

The obstructions to clean nuclear power are the NIMBY's and the folks that are reaping dividend checks from petrochem companies.

s0crates82

mcguirev10

I'm sorry, what the hell is happening here at Jalopnik? I though I had found the one place on the interwebs immune from comment posts with cats and captions... I mean c'mon people, we use dragons around here. I'd be on Fark if I wanted political flame wars with 'rofl cats'... wait... is this Fark?

CARBOMB

Computer servers are a little more important than hauling around someone's lazy fat ass.

newfmike

hakubak

As well, servers are doubling in efficiency every few years as more cores are stuffed onto one chip and chip speed increases, and one server can do more because of it.

newfmike

Christians tried that one for centuries. See Pascal's Wager.

hakubak

elwood

Heh. How much attention do you pay to agricultural policies? That is EXACTLY the kind of shit they do. Fishing quotas do more or less that already.

13thfloorelevator

DustyButt

WikiFact on Massachusetts:
Area Ranked 44th
- Total 10,555 sq mi
(27,336 km²)
- Width 183 miles (295 km)
- Length 113 miles (182 km)

100x100 sq mile solar array = 10000

Massachusetts is 550sq/mi smaller.

DustyButt

ripfire

zarchitect

And besides, 100 square miles is 10x10. Not 100x100.

hwyengr

kingedwin

Horseshit. Um, I mean you say you are making a a broad and somewhat outdated generalization my friend.

Here in the cloudy, rainy Northwest, people are spending $15,000 - $30,000 for roof and south-wall mounted solar panels that not only provide the energy needed to power the home on (most) days, but also put enough power back to the grid (on sunny days) that their electric meters run rapidly backwards and the public utility company writes them a check at the end of the month.

Big investment up front, pays for itself after 10 - 20 years depending on the specifics. This means your total energy costs for, say, 15 years of home ownership is zero.

Much cheaper than coal. Think of the benefits in Arizona, Kansas or even Ohio.

lascauxcaveman

"...By just about any measure, the past three years have produced one of the biggest cash gushers in the oil industry's history. Since January of 2002, the price of crude has tripled, leaving oil producers awash in profits. During that period, the top 10 major public oil companies have sold some $1.5 trillion worth of crude, pocketing profits of more than $125 billion...."

MoneyCNN:
"...Exxon Mobil Corp. Thursday reported the biggest annual profit on record for a U.S. corporation - earning more than $75,000 every minute of 2006 on the back of record oil prices.

The world's biggest publicly traded company by revenue posted net earnings of $39.5 billion on revenue of $377.6 billion last year, topping its previous profit record of $36.1 billion in 2005, which at the time was the largest for any U.S. company.

Not adjusted for inflation, oil prices hit a record high of $77.03 a barrel last July, pushing gasoline prices above $3 a gallon nationwide."

Yeah... That 10% is a friggin whopper.

DustyButt

"...A more realistic scenario involves distributing these same PV systems throughout the 50 states. Currently available sites-such as vacant land, parking lots, and rooftops-could be used. The land requirement to produce 800 gigawatts would average out to be about 17 x 17 miles per state. Alternatively, PV systems built in the "brownfields"-the estimated 5 million acres of abandoned industrial sites in our nation's cities-could supply 90% of America's current electricity."

DustyButt

also, that 100 sq miles is 100x 100 miles, ie a solar area larger than the state of massachusetts.

drewheyman

were you refering to Al Gore or John Edwards?

Oh, and if we didn't have all these servers, wouldn't we need a lot of paper to manage all the information they process? And paper comes from... anyone? Anyone?

hakubak

WTF! Put down the Kool-Aid, man!

DustyButt

To continue...another point everyone (including the "scientists" behind this study) seems to be missing is utility (Ha, pun!). An SUV carries between 1 and let's say 7 people a certain distance for that 15mpg. The average server handles thousands (if not millions) of queries per day. Anyone care to comment on the throughput of a server at their job?

How much of that served data is reducing the carbon footprint of nations by reducing brick-and-mortar impact and travel costs?

Simon

The problem is that people want their cake and want to eat it as well. There are plenty of methods of cutting costs and such, they will just cost more. And as Americans typically are, when it costs more, then its just not worth it or the fed gov't should cover the cost.

You can have more energy efficient servers, tell your CCard company, bank, local DMV, airlines, FAA, ANYONE what stores any data about you or what you own, that you would like to pay more next month and going forward, because you want more energy efficient servers.

Its just like the swarm of people who built their latest McMansion with cathedral ceilings, getting their first heating bill and then getting mad that energy prices are too high and that the gov't should do something about it. Please, didn't do well on physics I see, that whole heat rising thing just dawned on you now...

Now, as for the person that sarcastically comments that Nuclear is fine until something goes wrong... isn't that what has happened with our other power source? Just that nuclear happens to go wrong quickly doesn't make the "wrong" any worse then the massive damage that coal, oil and gas fired power plants have done over the last 50-80 years to the air, the land, sea, vegetation and health of millions. If we had pulled our head out of our arses and developed the technology instead of running in fear, we might been in a better place.

yetis

At best we can expect some half-assed, incremental, and pointlessly politically balanced maneuver that tries to make everyone happy but does nothing it was initially intended to do.

Just look at healthcare to see how well that system has been improved by decades of politically inept half-assery and a general lack of testicular fortitude.

eltonito

But yes, if the world were to use fewer energy hungry servers, then the power grid would continue to run. The reduced demand would be met by shutting down some generation.

Your grasp of cause vs. effect is so loose and your cow metaphor is so tenuous, that it only obfuscates the issue further. However, if more people were to become vegies--that would be met with fewer resource hungry cows bred. Farmers wouldn't simply produce the same amount of cows and kill the unused ones.

islandmonk

DustyButt

Rex W. Tillerson Chairman and Chief Executive Officer EXXON MOBILE

A native of Wichita Falls, Texas, Mr. Tillerson earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin before joining Exxon Company, U.S.A. in 1975 as a Production Engineer.

David J. O'Reilly Chairman and Chief Executive Officer CHEVRON

David J. O'Reilly is chairman and chief executive officer of Chevron Corporation.
A native of Dublin, Ireland, O'Reilly earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 1968 from University College, Dublin, from which he also received an honorary doctor of science degree in June 2002.

drewheyman

This is with existing technology.

This total area requirement could be divided among US states per state and would take up less land than some military bases.

Didn't some oil companies report record profit years back to back to back? They should be chipping in to solve this dilema because their product is f***ing up the planet.

I'm not even a treehugger and I see a problem in the system.

DustyButt

ripfire

hakubak

josejuan05

josejuan05

Best wishes:

Groto.
Gallery 5,
1 Cave Hill
Greenland.

gribo

.

.

Or maybe the spleen...

hakubak

Yeah, capitalism is the root of all evil, and servers are the life blood of capitalism. They're an abvious target.

I'm sure Gizmodo will now shut down its servers, dust off a hand-cranked printing press using recycled paper and their own blood for ink, then send us updates via free-range pigeons. It's the only logical thing to do.

Oh, and the pigeons will get free healthcare...

hakubak

These Communists want to send the world back to the 15th century. They can go fuck themselves.

TPSreports

Do you really think engineers call the shots and control company direction at PowerIndustryBigOil INC.?

DustyButt

What a rube.

shiftyeyedgoat

Seth L

For starters, there isn't really a substitute for a server. If you want to serve data, crunch numbers or process transactions, you will need something classified as a server. Of course, there are thousands of variants of "server" and given that every Apple computer sold ships with Apache installed, you could argue they are all "servers."

On the flipside, about 90% of SUV's could be replaced with another class of vehicle - they are purely ornamental and not functional for the majority of SUV drivers. Many could easily achieve the same results with a Smart ForTwo.

Replacing a mainframe with a significantly smaller and less power-hungry MacMini is probably not going to cut the mustard.

eltonito

Hungry for electricity, that is.

Hyman Decent

Somebody wants to have cake & eat it too!

FЯeeMan is slowly cЯawling out of the new commenting system

of course it would. just like if you run your car at full bore, it's fuel will run out more quickly than if you take it slow. You can also turn off power generators that aren't being used, which results in less power used. Again, electricity can't be stored very efficiently, so it's generated as it is needed.

drewheyman

Fossil is the best we've got right now; if it weren't, then some engineer would have designed something better and would be sleeping on a huge pile of beautiful women and money.

Stop being crazy.

drewheyman

sos10

Yeah, I call bullshit as well. I'd also like to know what the difference in CO2 emissions is for a power plant running at 50% capacity and one running flat out. E.g, if this power isn't being used, does the plant's emmissions actually go down?

I think along the same lines as vegetarianism. If I, and loads of my friends were to suddenly give up steak, cows would still get killed, they just wouldn't be eaten. They'd go into landfill, until the world realises that it needs less meat.

If all the world stopped using less power hungry servers, would the power grid really run at reduced capacity?

Indeed, is it more or less CO2-efficient to have, say, 5 power plants running at 95% capacity, or 10 plants running at 42.5%? Surely they generate some CO2 just by idling?

Sorry, I've run out of knowledge.

Rust-MyEnemy is stll out there!

sos10

Monty

Cars will use fuel cells, only remaining question is how the fcuk do you store hydrogen with the density to make it all worthwhile...

TrackpediaCow

HansStuckJr

If we used clean energy sources this would be moot. What you're saying is the equivalent of the power industry saying, "Look what you made me do"

DustyButt

Just because those damn greeny treehuggers want, lets do the opposite. Not research and create a more independent and reliable way to power our way of life, one way that might be cheaper and cleaner.

Im with you Bob, you made a very compelling and reasonable argument in few words.

dysthymia

Unless I'm missing something, servers don't emit singificant levels of carbon dioxide. The A/C units cooling the air around them don't, either. It's the power generating facilities that create the energy that runs these devices that do.

Writing it that way is misleading, even though I doubt it was intentional. I can already see people starting suspiciously at their desktops, slowly reaching for a rag to cover their mouths...

From the report: Nearly 40% of servers are underutilised by more than 50%.

Servers need available overhead to meet times of high demand.

Drizzten

Also power plants only produce as much electricity as is needed, as electricity is difficult to store, so additional power requirements due to servers is definitely to blame, among other needs.

Now, the question becomes is powering servers of value to us in relation to environmental impact, and the answer is probably YES. Just like driving SUVs is of value to some people.

drewheyman

DustyButt

Power plants belching metric tons of damaging pollutants are the problem. Maybe we focus blame where blame belongs... on the power industry.

Don't be distracted by junk like this.

DustyButt

I'm not sure it's worth it.

Vipper Of Vipp

gizmodohomepage

htrodblder

888gavin

drewheyman

elwood

go nuclear. the Clinton's can fuck themselves

~CR

bobcostas

Where do coal burning power plants place in comparison?

DustyButt