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Proposed data centre will release 23 Hiroshima atomic bomb worth of energy a day

12 points DeepLogin 1 hour ago 16 comments

andsoitis 1 hour ago | parent

How is comparing energy usage of a facility like a data center to a weapon that killed millions of people many decades ago an illuminating comparison?

It is like comparing a banana to a chair.

DangitBobby 1 hour ago | parent

It's not how much energy is used, it's how much wasted heat energy is dumped into the surrounding environment. Seems like a much more apt comparison in that light. Second paragraph of TFA:

> An analysis of the mammoth data centre proposed by celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary suggests it would release the equivalent of 23 atom bombs of heat waste into the boreal forest of northwestern Alberta every day.

ipsum2 58 minutes ago | parent

Still makes no sense. People do not have an intuition about how much heat a nuclear bomb gives off, and comparing an instantaneous explosion versus a energy in a day is really dumb.

DangitBobby 55 minutes ago | parent

It is pretty dumb. But much less dumb.

matja 50 minutes ago | parent

> 18 gigawatts of heat a day

Dimensional error.

Do they mean 18 GWh per day = 64.8 TJ / day = 750 MW ?

Or is this thing really going to use twice as much power as the largest nuclear power plant that currently exists?

lifeisloving 42 minutes ago | parent

Im convinced this data center project isn't even real, and has been a long running PR stunt to drive outrageous headlines about datacenters so people don't take the real critics seriously, or smaller datacenters seem more reasonable.

tln 17 minutes ago | parent

23 hb / 24 h = 17.5 GW

matja 4 minutes ago | parent

That's what the article says, yes. But is it accurate? The confusion of units makes me question the numbers, especially since I can find no other reference of the power usage or generation capacity of the site.

Lerc 49 minutes ago | parent

I believe we have reached a new threshold in hyperbolic headlines.

yetihehe 23 minutes ago | parent

Is it a quantum leap level of hyperbolicity?

Someone 45 minutes ago | parent

About the Hiroshima bomb, google tells me “Once initiated, the actual nuclear fission process and energy release happened almost instantaneously in a fraction of a microsecond.”

A day has 86,400 seconds, so that’s about 11 orders of magnitude.

That makes this a fairly meaningless comparison.

randerson 45 minutes ago | parent

A toaster also releases 23 Hiroshimas worth of energy over a long enough time frame. Its when it all releases at once that you should be concerned.

solyin 2 minutes ago | parent

Listen, I really hate waiting for toast in the morning, alright‽

jokoon 39 minutes ago | parent

Are there studies regarding the improvement of productivity with AI?

Or at least economic measurements in terms of money/profits brought by companies/entities who used it?

I mean of course it's going to depend on the field and how it's being used, but there could be a comparison between how much money was spent making AI overall, and how much actual measurable good things it brought.

And I don't mean the amount of customers paying for AI, I mean an actual demonstration that AI is worth doing.

sandworm101 39 minutes ago | parent

Strange fact: in terms of heat energy, the hiroshima bomb released far less energy than the fire it ignited. Much of the total destruction seen in footage was the result of the massive instantaneous fire of a woodem city. Had it been a concrete city, things would have looked very different.

A forest fire can release many hiroshimas of energy every day, and canada has more than a few of those each year.

ipsum2 16 minutes ago | parent

Hiroshima energy equivalents is surely a perfectly and not insensitive way of measuring energy.

New York City uses 1 hiroshima bomb-energy every 3 hours.