Wednesday, 31 March 2010

Warning from space...between the ears

BBC headline:
Greenpeace issues warning about data centre power
Tell me, BBC and Greenpeace, is that "warning" as in "advises" or "warning" as in "or else?" If the former, we can safely ignore it and if the latter, then the Beeb and Greenpeace need reminding that Greenpeace is not a branch of government and "or else" is not taken lightly in a civilised society when uttered by private citizens.

5 comments:

jayessell said...

The companies are going out of their way to use as little energy as possible and the Ecos aren't satisfied because of the SOURCE of the power?

When is the Power Grid 2.0 supposed to come online so that solar power from New Mexico and wind power from... um.... Windyville can be used in New Hampshire?

Plug some 21st century NukePower into that and the older CoalPower plants could be decommissioned IF,. necessary.

The highly touted 'BloomBoxes' consume natural gas and emit water vapor and Unicorn Farts.

Sergej said...

Energy already costs. Companies that use a lot of it are probably trying to use less just for that reason. Maybe we can wreck the existing infrastructure and replace it with nuclear. Maybe some fuel cell technology that uses fossil fuels more efficiently will come online. Maybe it will even be that "Bloom Box" thing that the man with the insincere smile was hawking on 60 Minutes.

Greenpeace brings what to the discussion?

Gauss said...

Just to be clear, the BloomBoxes do emit carbon dioxide. They're just more efficient at producing electricity from natural gas than gas turbine generators right now. So they're not a magic vaporware power plant.

Sergej said...

Bloom Boxes are high-temperature fuel cells built on a sintered quartz substrate. This is as much as I got from the 60 Minutes segment. The man with the insincere smile is ex-NASA, I think. NASA does fuel cells. Maybe he's using some of that knowledge. There is such a thing as spinning off a commercial venture from a research place, after all. Trying to make it sound as if the Bloom Box's principles were new, was a bit insulting.

No doubts that this may turn out to be The Technology, or maybe only the right kind of technology. Me, I'd prefer if it ran on polar bears and emitted clouds of CO2, just to rattle Al Gore's cage.

jayessell said...

Gauss:
I was kidding about the Unicorns.
It's actually CO2.

Sergej:
F*** the Polar Bears!
If only they and the people who
want to save them could share a cage.