Amazon's Emissions Climbed 6% in 2024 on Data Center Buildout

https://www.datacenterknowledge.com/sustainability/amazon-s-emissions-climbed-6-in-2024-on-data-center-buildout

by belter • 1 year ago

56 23 1 year ago

JCM9• 1 year ago

Now that Amazon is trying to convince folks they haven’t fallen behind on AI they’ve quietly stopped talking about how they’re slashing greenhouse gas emissions. Funny how that works.

breakyerself2• 1 year ago

It seems to me that it's normal that our overall demand for energy is growing. It's a failure of policy over a long period that has lead to these bullshit outcomes.

asdff3• 1 year ago

Consumer energy per capita in the u.s. has been flat for a long time and even declining. Increased demand for energy is in fact a reversal of prevailing trends over the past couple of decades.

Scarblac• 1 year ago

Isn't part of that caused by moving production to China?

blibble• 1 year ago

remember guys, cut your beef consumption, drive less and have fewer foreign holidays (preferably none)

this will allow the hyperscalers to build more DCs to make you completely redundant, so that bezos can have a 3rd fleet of jets

Spivak• 1 year ago

This implies that Amazon is The Paperclip AI and is just building data centers for no purpose and isn't using them or is using them for non-productive means like Bezos' gaming rig.

But they're not, they're building out data centers because the world demands more AWS capacity. Shouldering the emissions from this on Amazon, unless you believe they're being particularly inefficient about it, is shooting the messenger.

itake3• 1 year ago

We are in the early phase of VC fueled pollution.

Its the same as when Uber launched. VCs suppress prices, to create demand ($5 Uber rides anywhere in the city) which generates more transactions, which generates more pollution. Instead of a alternative lower cost transportation (like BART or muni), SF residents chose the highest environmental impact and lowest cost option.

asdff3• 1 year ago

Part of the reason why they demand more aws capacity is from being marketed aws capacity. Additionally the elephant of the room of AI also something being marketed towards these companies.

Really the only reason why we don't consider making light websites and tooling these days like in the past where hardware constraints mandated it, is that all we think it is unsexy. That is it. All this waste for a sexy css and an ai app. Funny how we make a big stink of only calling libraries we actually use in code then we reach for a chatbot trained on all the corpus of man to tell us how many oz in a cup.

pton_xd• 1 year ago

also flush less and get a no-flow shower head, those chips need all the water they can get!

belter2• 1 year ago

Most dont realize data centers mostly must use potable water, so they put additional stress on the public drinkable water system.

"Data Center Water Usage: A Comprehensive Guide" - https://dgtlinfra.com/data-center-water-usage/

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-data-centers-are-deepeni...

gruez2• 1 year ago

remember guys, cut your beef consumption, drive less and have fewer foreign holidays (preferably none)
this will allow the hyperscalers to build more DCs [...]

This juxtaposition makes zero sense because the datacenters are getting built regardless of whether people are eating beef or not. By and large, there's no global cap on carbon, so everyone is free to emit whatever they want, and someone eating less beef isn't allowing amazon to train more AI models or vice versa.

melling2• 1 year ago

It’s sarcasm. Poe’s Law?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

wskinner3• 1 year ago

Higher energy consumption translates to higher standards of living and better outcomes for everyone.

belter2• 1 year ago

Here is a video you must see urgently :-)

https://youtu.be/F-QA2rkpBSY

tootie• 1 year ago

Having no experience in the field, is there a reason they don't drill ground source heat pumps for data centers? If the biggest power draw is climate control, ground source has the lowest operational cost.

Amazon's Emissions Climbed 6% in 2024 on Data Center Buildout

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