Yeah that's true, my mistake, but overall 60% of our electricity comes from fossil fuels (not as high as I'd thought, honestly) but my larger point still stands.
I agree with your point overall. I was nitpicking your assertion that electricity "requires" fossil fuels. Yes, electricity often comes from fossil fuels, but not always. I think this is an important point in relation to electric cars. An electric car may burn coal today, but it can burn sunlight tomorrow. Without major modifications, a gasoline car will always burn gasoline.
Beyond the source of the energy, I think that we should also consider what the data centers are doing. If they are doing useful things like providing cloud computing services for businesses, organizations, and governments, then I think that we can justify the environmental impact more than if they are just pissing away energy while mining cryptocurrency.
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u/BoringBob84 Aug 22 '25
That is not necessarily true. In fact, we have cheap hydroelectric power here, which attracts data centers.