The transition

Roamers said:
Moving solar/wind over distance is costly. On a much smaller scale, anyone that has designed a solar/battery RV system knows wires get big fast to reduce voltage drop. Data Center near source is the correct thing to do.
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Yes, please explain to us how electrons produced by solar and wind are heavier and apparently have woke cooties or something that makes them more expensive to transport than electrons from coal or natural gas. I'm listening.

The freaking point of electricity is that it is easy to transport, almost instantly, over long distances. That is what those wire things strung across the countryside do for us.
 
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Well power stations are built centrally with much shorter transmission distances thats how most grids were built, now we have to transport over large distances.
Using windpower for data centres is just farcical for sensibilities.
Stop them, all they do is spy on us
 
Chargeride said:
Well power stations are built centrally with much shorter transmission distances thats how most grids were built, now we have to transport over large distances.
Using windpower for data centres is just farcical for sensibilities.
Stop them, all they do is spy on us
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Yes, the coal plants in Wyoming are so very close to urban centers.

Actually renewables are an excellent fit for providing compute for AI training because the intermittency is easily worked around. Part of the training infra already uses an internal market to only purchase compute when it is cheap enough. And that is old established technology in use since around 2017.
 
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When you think about it, most hydroelectric generation isn't "centrally located" either.

What ignorant rot we have here.
 
Mr. Coffee said:
Yes, please explain to us how electrons produced by solar and wind are heavier and apparently have woke cooties or something that makes them more expensive to transport than electrons from coal or natural gas. I'm listening.

The freaking point of electricity is that it is easy to transport, almost instantly, over long distances. That is what those wire things strung across the countryside do for us.
Click to expand...

Low voltage DC transmission (like RVs use) does require large wires, but fortunately thats not how anyone transports electricity over long distances. They invert DC to AC and step up voltage so that you're transmitting higher voltage but lower amperage.

The transmission issue isn't that its difficult or expensive to build transmission (it isn't), its that its a huge pain in the ass to get permission to do it in the US. And renewables need to be installed where the renewable resource is (areas with strong winds or large flat areas with lots of sun) which often doesn't coincide with where we already have power plants and transmission infrastructure built. In that sense, it makes sense to build data centers near new renewable generation because you don't need to fight with various governments and an army of nimbys to get the new power to your data center.
 
jabberwocky said:
Low voltage DC transmission (like RVs use) does require large wires, but fortunately thats not how anyone transports electricity over long distances. They invert DC to AC and step up voltage so that you're transmitting higher voltage but lower amperage.
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The thickness of the conductor is a function of how much current (amperage) you are carrying, not overall power.

The wire in that conduit carries 8kw (400v x 20A) from my solar array. For reference the posts are 6x6s so that gives you an idea of how thick the wires are. The conduit running to my EV charger (240v x 40A) is a bit thicker.

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Mr. Coffee said:
The thickness of the conductor is a function of how much current (amperage) you are carrying, not overall power.
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Right, power (watts) is volts times amps. Amperage determines your wiring requirements, so if you want to transmit over long distances you increase voltage to decrease amps. A lot of small solar installs (like RVs or off grid cabins) just keep everything DC because thats what solar panels generate and that way you don't need inverters (or at least need fewer/simpler).
 
The problem with that is they operate on superfast reaction times, parked in the top of Scotland they are in the slow lane, also you need to get all the data up there and back.
Every modern car in the UK shares and average of 2.5gb a day and the competitors will be 1ms ahead.
 
Chargeride said:
The problem with that is they operate on superfast reaction times, parked in the top of Scotland they are in the slow lane, also you need to get all the data up there and back.
Every modern car in the UK shares and average of 2.5gb a day and the competitors will be 1ms ahead.
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Where do you get that from? You're scaring me, dude.

Network latencies for those kinds of things are tiny compared to compute latencies.
 
Chargeride also has twisted views on race, religion, purity, origin, and supremacy. No thanks. If it happens again I will hit ignore.
 
Latency is everything thesedays, thats why Starlink sats are so low they fall out of the sky.
A data centre in the US drilled through a mountain to get a faster connection.
I was clerk of works on a digital exchange build and the lads cut the interconnecting wires shorter to make it look neat, wouldnt boot up, had to order all new cables.
 
Its not rocket science, transmission loses power over distance, pylons and cables are expensive, permission is required.
But it has to happen for renrwables, either that or we all make our own locally.

www.energy.gov

Queued Up… But in Need of Transmission

Transmission infrastructure is the backbone of the nation’s power system, ensuring Americans across the country have 24/7 access to affordable, reliable electricity to power their homes, businesses, and communities. Expanding transmission and modernizing
www.energy.gov www.energy.gov
 
Chargeride said:
Latency is everything thesedays, thats why Starlink sats are so low they fall out of the sky.
A data centre in the US drilled through a mountain to get a faster connection.
I was clerk of works on a digital exchange build and the lads cut the interconnecting wires shorter to make it look neat, wouldnt boot up, had to order all new cables.
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You are missing the point.

Network latencies are on the order of tens of milliseconds.
Compute latencies for AI inferences are seconds or tens of seconds, 100 to 1000 times larger.

You can improve overall performance far more and far more cheaply by throwing more tensor cores at the AI than you can by making the network connection faster.
 
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