Edit: One steel foundry uses about 3,000 more than that, according to my napkin math
So it's a useful figure if you want to make a shocking headline. "Uses as much power as infinity of something that uses no power!"
As in, we have now have the energy capacity for 300,000 fewer homes given this operating data center.
So not only is it a relatable unit, but it's an incredibly meaningful unit for those who care about ensuring that energy availability actually support something of value (families) rather than something wasteful (crypto mining).
Folks should be happy since the crypto operation is using far less power and dumping less heat into the environment that the industrial operation that was previously there, but datacenters seem to be a trendy thing complain about at the moment so here we are.
It's burning less power than before, but it's not producing anything of value.
The world cannot reasonbly run without alu, it got along better without crypto currencies.
The smelter was providing jobs that fed money into the local economy. I'm sure much less money is coming out of the mining operation.
theamk•1h ago
That's not the case here, that center is __dumping__ heat into environment - it is by design, all that electricity is being converted into the heat. By design, it's enormous electric heater.
userbinator•1h ago
hephaes7us•21m ago
timeon•1h ago
edoceo•56m ago
nh23423fefe•56m ago
dangalf•17m ago
geoffschmidt•11m ago
mr_toad•4m ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer's_principle