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Pushing to make the data centers more efficient seems like a missed opportunity to demand that they use renewables only, or else cut them off the grid so they're forced to generate their own energy while also making it very very expensive to pollute.
Essentially, it seems like legislation could force data centers into a spot where they have to divert some of their profits into building up more renewable energy - for themselves and for the grid
Making them more efficient makes energy usage lower, which means lower emissions.
Switching the power source doesn't make them use less energy, they will use the exact same amount.
The energy power source they switched to could power other industries/homes instead.
Unless the mandate is "generate as much green energy as you're consuming". Which would probably mean they'd find some loophole like buying energy companies or something.
So there's a solution for the pollution already working in Denmark.
All data centers in Denmark needs to be hooked up to the central heating system. That means that all data centers are required to use all their heat from the data center to heat up the water for households.
As you can imagine, there's less fossil fuel burned because you now get the heat from this.
I have no idea if this would work in the US, because it means to actually regulate something.
Wouldn't work in the United States as there is no central heating system.
Not in all cities but in some, and some buildings do use centralized heating. Nothing on the scale of Denmark.
I think Syracuse University has the biggest one covering the university and some parts of the city.
To be fair, Denmark is about the size of a building.
Central heating systems are still pretty local. Maybe some states could do it?
It also wouldn't make much sense in suburbia.
But it's strange that you don't have central heating in big densely populated cities located in moderate climate with normal winters.
So do
Do so?
No
So do that then
Pity that waste heat couldn’t be used to offset household or business heating and thereby reduce energy usage elsewhere.
That's entirely possible we do that here. Unfortunately the infrastructure is very expensive if your city doesn't already have district heating and if it does like most cities do here, I'm guessing it's still pretty damn expensive to implement.
It's great though.
