108 pointsby geox3 hours ago11 comments
  • zepearl29 minutes ago
    Let's add as well "SpaceX’s Terafab will rely on natural gas power plants, not Tesla solar panels" to the mix :o(

    https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/07/spacexs-terafab-will-rely-...

    • deepsun13 minutes ago
      Don't understand why. AI training can be run during the sunny days. Could be a good PR opportunity for Musk, I'm surprised he doesn't take it.

      Especially if he buys from his own company.

      • nielsbot9 minutes ago
        and would be cheaper in the long run? or maybe they could even do solar + storage.

        i guess even at this stage “gas is easier” is still winning…

      • dgellow9 minutes ago
        You’re talking about one of the most hated person on hearth with one of the worst reputation. The literal Nazi salute guy. I don’t think he cares much about positive PR like that
  • fhdkweig2 hours ago
    Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49220350

    256 comments, 8 hours ago

  • MarkWayneNewton3 hours ago
    At least these sites (its more than Amazon) are being built near the energy source they will consume. Straight out of the ground into a turbine and then into the electron spinners.

    Also there's not a lot of anything where these sites are located (Near El Paso). The 4-5 Road Runners who live around there will probably appreciate the change.

    West Texas is basically Mad Max 2.

  • synack2 hours ago
    Don't these things get more efficient as they scale up? One big plant is probably better than 30 small ones.
    • Grombobulousan hour ago
      A better question is why a company is allowed to effectively lie using fraudulent false advertising in its marketing and brand image about being environmentally conscious and become the largest polluter in the country?

      Is Amazon too broke to buy the necessary land to build out wind/solar/battery? I thought a company that name sponsored “Climate Pledge Arena” could afford to pay a little bit extra to care about the climate.

      A wind/solar/battery solution is not even really much more expensive than gas power and it’s far less dependent on fluctuating fuel prices.

      • onlyrealcuzzoan hour ago
        > Is Amazon too broke to buy the necessary land to build out wind/solar/battery?

        It's more capital intensive, and interest rates are 8%, because our elected officials are completely incompetent.

        • Grombobulousan hour ago
          8% interest rates don’t seem to be a problem for financing all the data centers and AI hardware.

          Amazon can afford to power their data centers with clean energy.

          It’s not called “Climate Pledge But Only If It’s Less Capital Intensive Arena”

        • user4392829 minutes ago
          I am curious how renewables + battery compare here, if at all feasible.

          I thought there was a gas turbine shortage?

    • neuronexmachina27 minutes ago
      If I understand correctly, for speed of deployment they're building a less-efficient simple-cycle plant (instead of the typical combined-cycle). Even though it's larger, the efficiency is worse than a typical natural gas plant.
      • SoftTalker6 minutes ago
        Natural gas is basically a waste product that gets flared off in many oil-producing parts of Texas. If this private power plant can use that gas for something productive then I guess at least we're no worse off. But it's not clear that is what is happening.
    • NooneAtAll32 hours ago
      efficient in money, nothing is said about other metrics

      it's quite possible to have more product made, thus more pollution (or less materials consumed, thus less)

      but concentration definitely will rise

      • khimarosan hour ago
        sometime in the energy sector once told me "the solution to pollution is dilution"
        • wat10000an hour ago
          Which is nonsense. There's plenty of pollution that's been diluted as much as it possibly can be and is still problematic. CO2 is an obvious example. Or consider leaded gasoline or mercury. You have to be careful not to eat too much fish or you'll have trouble with the mercury in it. That's been diluted by the entire ocean and that didn't solve it.
          • lazide35 minutes ago
            uh, that’s nonsense.

            co2 is problematic because of concentration - the sheer volume.

            leaded gas and mercury are a problem because of bio-concentration.

            dilution still helps!

            • forestrywat19 minutes ago
              Of course it helps, but where are you going to dilute more co2 these days?
    • wat10000an hour ago
      A bigger unit is generally more efficient, but this is a single plant with a bunch of units, and I don't know that the individual units are any bigger than they would be elsewhere.
  • vladmk23 minutes ago
    Someone’s gotta stop this who idk - that’s the problem
  • burnt-resistor2 hours ago
    These jet engine gas turbines create air pollution in the forms of formaldehyde and NOx and noise pollution.
  • ares623an hour ago
    Finally, a structure worthy of its namesake.
  • senderista18 minutes ago
    "Shareholder Value Pledge Arena"
  • chinathrowan hour ago
    > 7.65 gigawatt gas power plant

    This is another level of insanity, right there.

    • selectodude23 minutes ago
      Second largest hydrocarbon power generator in the world. Unreal.
  • casey22 hours ago
    This completely ignores carbon capture and offsets. Amazon remains committed to net zero.
    • forestrywat26 minutes ago
      Amazon is not capturing this amount of carbon. And the offsets are all smoke and mirrors.
    • _ink_an hour ago
      Amazon is not capturing carbon in any meaningful scale and planting trees is great, until they capture fire.
      • brianaker7 minutes ago
        Trees are wonderful for a number of reasons, and the need for them for local climate, which includes shading and their contribution to local humidity, is important as well.

        They are not, though, a significant sequestration for CO₂.

        A helpful way to think about this is to consider coal. To produce coal the energy input comes from time, pressure, etc over tens to thousands of millions of years.

        The significance of trees is for the local climate, or global if you are considering one of handful of rainforests.

  • bethekidyouwant3 hours ago
    Co2 is pollution now?
    • mirzap2 hours ago
      On an industrial scale, yes, of course.
    • essephan hour ago
      Yes, by burning fuels we release carbon from the thing being burned, it gets mixed with oxygen, and released into the atmosphere as co2.

      As the suns energy warms the earth, the earth radiates heat back out and away from the surface and normally back out into space. co2 also acts like a blanket for that radiant heat, and traps it inside.

      More co2 in the atmosphere traps more energy around the planet like an insulated wrap.

      To reduce this, we have to extract the carbon out of the atmosphere and store it.

    • cebert3 hours ago
      Yes
    • goatlover2 hours ago
      It's the main greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. Where have you been?
    • BurningFrog2 hours ago
      Sure, but it's only damaging globally. It's no more damaging to the local environment than to anywhere else on the planet.