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The Pollution Being Churned Out by AI Data Centers Is So Severe That It's Almost Incomprehensible (futurism.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[+] -10 points 2 months ago (7 children)

He was never about that.

He said he was, but actions speak louder and if he ever was he'd be promoting Hydrogen-electric with a Hydrogen ICE transition* instead of battery electric which isn't sustainable and is environmentally disastrous in its own way.

*Diesel ICE can be converted to Hydrogen ICE (note: they still need ~5-10% diesel, so it's not a forever technology) - https://www.unsw.edu.au/engineering/research-technology/is/converting-diesel-engines-to-run-on-hydrogen

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  • [–] 24 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    Give it up. Hydrogen is not happening. Batteries have won. Now we need to move to more sustainable chemistries.

    Oh, and yeah, Elon was always just posing.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    While I believe that the various pushes for hydrogen in cars and light trucks is a shameless attempt at replacing the revenue stream from petrol, hydrogen does make a lot of sense for heavy trucks, trains, ships - anywhere diesel or bunker fuel is used now.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    My diesel car has run on B100 (100% biodiesel) just fine for years. That's already good enough and requires no new technology or infrastructure. Hydrogen is stupid as hell.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago*

    Hydrogen can make some degree of sense if we take as an energy reserve, stockpileable, for an event where it is necessary to suplement energy needs.

    So many countries with solar farms being turned off to prevent grid collapse could consider building hydrogen plants or, those with sea acess, dessalination stations, to stockpile fresh water underground and extract minerals directly from the water.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago

    Batteries have a much smaller overall environmental footprint than traditional ICE vehicles. Hydrogen is also produced at scale in a super dirty way right now. There is no clean way to produce hydrogen fuel. So, our goal should be less travel overall, public transit, and EVs, in that order.

    If we find a way to mass produce hydrogen in a clean way, then I'm all for hydrogen vehicles. But, we aren't there yet.

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