> By 2050, the world will need nearly three times as much power as we use today
This feels like a "no one needs more than 640k of RAM"^ kind of comment.
Only triple? In 24 years? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the transition from fossil fuels to renewables where we're replacing one source for another as opposed to increasing the power use, but it does feel like the demand for power, especially with Data Centres in the current news cycle, would take us 10x in "the shortest amount of time it's possible to 10x power generation".
> Fusion: Once the technology is fully commercialized within the next decade
I don't really want to say it, but isn't the joke that fusion been a decade away for 50 years?
^I know this is not quite what was said, I'm just using it for reference.
> The report finds that data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and are expected to consume approximately 6.7 to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028.
Even if data centers went 10x, that would only increase our electricity use by a bit over a third.
.
But for something more fun:
This[1] says global energy use is 186,000 TWh/year. Or an average of about 21.2 TW.
The surface area of the earth[2] is 510 million km^2, or 510 trillion m^2.
Which works out to global energy use being an average of about 42 mW / m^2.
Per Wikipedia[3], the IPCC says that human-caused greenhouse warming is 2.72 W/m^2 .
Which is "only" about 65 times global energy use.
Which means if we did start using double-digit multiples of our current energy use, it starts to matter whether we're adding that energy to the environment (fission/fusion, fossil, probably geothermal) or just redirecting it (hydro, wind, solar). With the caveat for solar that the panels probably have lower albedo than what they're on top of.
Until recently total electrical power consumption in developed nations has been practically stalled for decades, despite continued growth in economic output, and greater demand for electricity consuming devices. Mostly because as the usage of electricity has gone up, it’s been entirely offset by endless improvements in efficiency.
So you have two opposed forces in action. Rapidly increasing demand for electricity consuming services, and rapidly increasing efficiency of those services. It also helps that a lot of that additional demand is only possible due to increased efficiency. Imagine if every phone was as power inefficient as an old Pentium 4. They would last about 30 mins and burn your hands in the process.
Even with datacentres and AI, there is huge economic pressure to increase the efficiency of the devices involved, and there’s been no slow down in year-on-year increases of compute/W, even if the total amount compute per chip isn’t as rapid as it used to be.
Many advanced economies have seen declining energy use per capita, and flat energy use overall, in the last few decades. It is not unreasonable to assume this trend will continue and spread as more countries become wealthy.
I don't see why China or most of the EU would want to stop development so I think the only real question is whether countries that protect their fossil fuel mafias end up irrelevant by not keeping up.
I'm not advocating on BG's behalf but your suggestion pre-supposes that his activities exceeded those he has already admitted to. I don't know whether they did or not, but I think it's worth noting that Epstein was very keen to make contacts with influential people and then boast of those contacts. It's at least worth considering what while boasting he made up some stuff about the nature of his activities with those people. For that reason I'm not willing to assume that everyone who ever had contact with Epstein was involved in child sex crimes.
I don't understand this love affair with nuclear energy, especially in a country full of sunny deserts. Cover a fraction of it in solar panels coupled with sodium batteries, and the problem is solved. But for some reason this idea is not being considered seriously. Why?
I understand in the 50's we needed reactors to create plutonium to fend off russians.
I understand in the 80's the solar panels were expensive.
But now, when the panels are cheap and lithium batteries are cost competitive and sodium batteries are being actively developed (and already put into cars), there is simply no excuse.
If the economics really line up, it will happen the way you say. I personally like nuclear as well since it pumps out a lot of power and works great as a network baseline. I don't see them as excluding one another but complementing eachother for different areas.
Entrenched status quo. A variation of 'science progresses one funeral at a time'. Sadly.
Australia is the same. More sunshine than we know what to do with. Vast amounts of land that is essentially unpopulated and no good for much else (arguably, the beauty of nature etc.), and yet we have two main political parties: one is passionately anti-renewables and essentially drill-baby-drill whilst the other is milquetoast on renewables.
... all the while Australia is dependent upon importing the power that fuels critical infrastructure and logistics. Makes no fucking sense whatsoever, unless the status quo is making massive profits and can't face the possibility of any alternative.
This feels like a "no one needs more than 640k of RAM"^ kind of comment.
Only triple? In 24 years? Maybe I'm misunderstanding the transition from fossil fuels to renewables where we're replacing one source for another as opposed to increasing the power use, but it does feel like the demand for power, especially with Data Centres in the current news cycle, would take us 10x in "the shortest amount of time it's possible to 10x power generation".
> Fusion: Once the technology is fully commercialized within the next decade
I don't really want to say it, but isn't the joke that fusion been a decade away for 50 years?
^I know this is not quite what was said, I'm just using it for reference.
> The report finds that data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and are expected to consume approximately 6.7 to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028.
Even if data centers went 10x, that would only increase our electricity use by a bit over a third.
.
But for something more fun:
This[1] says global energy use is 186,000 TWh/year. Or an average of about 21.2 TW.
The surface area of the earth[2] is 510 million km^2, or 510 trillion m^2.
Which works out to global energy use being an average of about 42 mW / m^2.
Per Wikipedia[3], the IPCC says that human-caused greenhouse warming is 2.72 W/m^2 .
Which is "only" about 65 times global energy use.
Which means if we did start using double-digit multiples of our current energy use, it starts to matter whether we're adding that energy to the environment (fission/fusion, fossil, probably geothermal) or just redirecting it (hydro, wind, solar). With the caveat for solar that the panels probably have lower albedo than what they're on top of.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
[2] https://www.universetoday.com/articles/surface-area-of-the-e...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing
So you have two opposed forces in action. Rapidly increasing demand for electricity consuming services, and rapidly increasing efficiency of those services. It also helps that a lot of that additional demand is only possible due to increased efficiency. Imagine if every phone was as power inefficient as an old Pentium 4. They would last about 30 mins and burn your hands in the process.
Even with datacentres and AI, there is huge economic pressure to increase the efficiency of the devices involved, and there’s been no slow down in year-on-year increases of compute/W, even if the total amount compute per chip isn’t as rapid as it used to be.
I'm not advocating on BG's behalf but your suggestion pre-supposes that his activities exceeded those he has already admitted to. I don't know whether they did or not, but I think it's worth noting that Epstein was very keen to make contacts with influential people and then boast of those contacts. It's at least worth considering what while boasting he made up some stuff about the nature of his activities with those people. For that reason I'm not willing to assume that everyone who ever had contact with Epstein was involved in child sex crimes.
I understand in the 50's we needed reactors to create plutonium to fend off russians.
I understand in the 80's the solar panels were expensive.
But now, when the panels are cheap and lithium batteries are cost competitive and sodium batteries are being actively developed (and already put into cars), there is simply no excuse.
Why then?
Australia is the same. More sunshine than we know what to do with. Vast amounts of land that is essentially unpopulated and no good for much else (arguably, the beauty of nature etc.), and yet we have two main political parties: one is passionately anti-renewables and essentially drill-baby-drill whilst the other is milquetoast on renewables.
... all the while Australia is dependent upon importing the power that fuels critical infrastructure and logistics. Makes no fucking sense whatsoever, unless the status quo is making massive profits and can't face the possibility of any alternative.
Bring on the funerals.
a) expensive (meaning much more money can be extracted from the taxpayers) or
b) we do need to keep the nuclear physicist employed (but why cancel SSC then?)