– Should there be a separate a government policy to deal with this? Perhaps a systematic repealing of outdated restrictive energy laws?
– If the facts said “Life is fine without Chia Pets. Chia Pets are great, but if we outlaw them we will reduce electricity consumption 9% immediately and by 25% in just 6 short years”. . . would anyone support outlawing Chia Pets?
– At one point in my life, the left widely demonized the automobile industry, the steel industry etc., and today, planners, visionaries and local governments often tout efforts to create “car free neighborhoods” . . . will there be similar efforts to create "internet free zones?
I dunno. It seems like a lot of electricity and I am not sure what to think.
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It seems to me that perhaps a half century ago, in the 1970s
maybe fed’l state and local governments passed a bunch of restrictive energy/electricity laws that seemed like good ideas at the time, (Hmm maybe we could have AI generate a list of them).
It also seems to me that now might be a good time to systematically go back and start repealing the ones that no longer make sense, no longer have support etc.
If we try to imagine something OTHER THAN search engines and AI doing this then . . . well it’s hard to imagine it happening without some sort of maj> response.
Prediction:
We will wait until something; breaks and then throw money at it.
I wonder how much of that percentage is for academic fraud or otherwise from the too lazy / wouldn’t know an original idea if it bit them / no one will ever know crowd?
The short answer is
"Yes but diversify (esp geographically)
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Slightly longer:
It is easy to find a utilities ETF that has had 15-17% return YTD.
Based on the current and anticipated demand for electricity we can reasonably expect that will continue. Specifically:
utilities will underperform the 7 or so (risky) tech superstars that are carrying the market today but
utility stocks will also outperform the other 400+ S&P stocks.
Here is a YTD picture it is probably a good template for the future: S&P 500 YTD Return: 23.25% (as of October 11, 2024)
Top Performers: The “Magnificent Seven” stocks (e.g., Nvidia, Tesla) have seen gains of 40-60% YTD2
====> Utility ETFs: are somewhere on here with 15-17% returns
Average Performance of Remaining Stocks: The remaining stocks in the S&P 500 have had more modest gains, averaging around 5-10% YTD
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“ Dr. Ian Malcolm:
Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Accuse me of living in the Stone Age but…
Why? It’s gobbling up our electricity so robots can put people out of work and people’s voices and likenesses can be duplicated when and where ever? We are better off again why?
I believe every government and regulatory agency should annually conduct a complete inventory of all laws, rules, regulations, writs, and all needless spending associated with them and take a hatchet to as much as possible!
(Another thread I know but someday worth considering)
One thing the advocates of this are not is artificially stupid.
How dumb do you have to be to move full bore ahead toward a thing that’s going to consume 20-25% of your total energy at a time when capacity is already not equal to demand?
Algebra:
→ An electric power plant produces 100 total units of electricity today,
→ Today data centers use 9% of total electricity generated 100 units = 9 units + 91 units (9 is 9% of 100)
→ Keeping 91 unchanged, we find that 2030 will require
136.5 = 45.5 + 91 (45.5 is 30% of our new total)
Basically, just to accommodate new data serves we need to
expand powerplants by 36.5%
expand the (incoming) nat gas pipelines by 36.5%
expand the (outgoing) electrical grid by 36.5%
All by 2030, about 5-and-a-half-years away.
That’s a pretty tall order (and it does not even include added population EVs or crypto “mining.”)
