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Las Vegas' dystopia-sphere, powered by 150 Nvidia GPUs and drawing up to 28,000,000 watts, is both a testament to the hubris of humanity and an admittedly impressive technical feat | PC Gamer (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[+] -11 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Solar only works during the day. During night you need batteries which are not renewable. Mining lithium trashes ecosystems and we probably have enough for like 50 more years at this rate, cobalt is extracted through slave labour. And we've seen how well recycling works for other materials which are less complex. So all these renewables aren't all that green in every aspect. Unless we solve the energy storage problem it isn't as simple as putting up more panels.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    You know, I'm getting really sick of these comments where people think they know what they're talking about and repeat a bunch of talking points about lithium.

    Lithium is not going to be the basis of a renewable grid. We need it for EVs because it's the best Wh/kg that we have right now, but we don't care so much about weight for grid storage. Cost/kg is the main measure we care about there (though there are some other considerations in specific conditions). We already have tech being deployed in the field that's better than lithium for grid storage. Flow batteries, flywheels, pumped hydro, or just heating up sand or rocks. Others, like sodium batteries, are being manufactured and will probably find their way into real products in the next few years.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Chill, no need to be stressed. Part of the ideas you mentioned are already implemented in some cases, but they are not without drawbacks. Pumped hydro is good, but has high maintainance costs, messes with the fish and requires large bodies of water, how do you get tbat in the desert? Flywheels have good inertia, great for stabilizing the grid, Ireland has some for that exact reason, but can't store a whole lot. And heating up roxks and sand may work if you need heat at night, but you need electricity, so you need water to turn into steam to produce it. Sodium batteries look the most promising, we'll see how they develop. But until we get these storqge facilities built, adding more solar would only destabilise the grids even more.

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

    So if you knew this which is a reasonable post why do you post the propaganda piece before?

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago*

    What propaganda? I think you have to go back and read my post once more... The thread started from solar panels in the desert. At the moment the most widely used grid storage is pumped hydro, how will you do that in the desert? Next most used tech RIGHT NOW is lithium batteries. Other solutions exist, but how many are there implemented and ready to capture that energy right now? Oh, not so many? Then putting up more solar panels hoping that one day we have the storage for them is foolish, these panles lose efficiency over time. I don't have an agenda to spread, there is no propaganda, I am only talking about the an issue which exists, which is energy storage, for which we have some solutions, with their pros and cons, but not close to being implemented.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    Sodium batteries (which are on the market now) are way more environmentally friendly than Lithium batteries.

    The materials are very accessible by comparison to Lithium batteries and they're way more stable.

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