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Renewables blow past nuclear when it comes to cheap datacenter juice (www.theregister.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 31 points 1 year ago* (12 children)

have datacenters get their power only from renewables and limit the amount of area they have to build them and watch renewable efficiency skyrocket as they either have to develop them or have limited power.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Are you trying to trick tech companies into being useful? That'll upset them.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Someone tell Silicon Valley: They should put datacenters on trains so no one knows where they are. gonna need HSR for it to work properly tho.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago (6 children)

    Renewable efficiency is close to the theoretical limit. Solar cell have a limit just over 33% and current models have efficiency of around 25%.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Renewable efficiency is close to the theoretical limit.

    There's still plenty of juice to squeeze in terms of cost to manufacturer, deploy, and maintain. This isn't purely a question of cell efficiency.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    if the component is at its limit, then you can come up with ways to use that component more efficiently. Also reducing the size of the whole thing also increases efficiency singe you can stuff more of them in same area

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Tha area is given by the suns light. The sun gives us around 1000w per m2. The theoretical limit is 330w converted to electrical power. Current panels achieve 250w.

    This is not a GPU, making things smaller doesn't give you any gains.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    it doesnt have to be just solar power gained from solarcells, there could be all kinds of novel solutions to get more out of what can be harnessed. Things could be combined to get better results or they could be used for unconventional things to get something new.

    But such innovation doesnt happen unless there is need for it, and companies dont see renewable energy as big priority as rest of us, otherwise there would be crazy competition for who invents better stuff and still using fossil fuels would get you laughed at. Only way to create such need is to force companies into it by threatening profits more directly, as looming eco collapse doesnt seem to concern them since its oh so many quarters away.

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