Tobberone

Compute power seems to be the same, disregarding any architecture changes. If they manage to pull off equal performance at a lower price and lower power envelope, it'll actually be quite something.

ATI, sorry meant AMD, have tried the low price approach. They achieved nothing in terms of market share, the green fans didn't find lower price and better performance enough to be swayed, and only ended up hurting their bottom line. There is nothing in it for AMD.

What has AMD to gain by dumping prices to sooth the nvidia-first crowd?

Yeah. Someone will always be able to pay more than the common man. And companies using it to produce something will always afford to pay more than someone just consuming electricity.

You are so right. Thank you! In a situation where it is impossible to generate or import any electricity at all, a nuclear reactor would not be able to produce any electricity either, because the grid is non-operational.

Yeah, I did say it twice about the same thing. You got me there. However, energy is not created by solar or wind. It is merely transformed. And is transformed again when it's used. You don't have to question that. It's still doing the same thing it did before, we merely rerouted it a bit.

You've never seen anything about solar and wind because it's a zero sum game. Both are dependent on the light and heat output of the sun, which is estimated to burn for more than 4 billion years more. So, basically it comes down to earth's ability to retain the light/heat of the sun versus the sun's output on the grand scheme of things. And on the local side (the energy consumer) it comes down to the first law of Thermo dynamics: Energy can't be created or destroyed, only reformed and/or transferred. So basically, since the amount of energy is set by the dynamic of the sun Vs isolation, for humans it equals out, because all we do is reforming energy and transferring it.

So then, how about geothermal and fossil energy (and nuclear)? Well, for both of them, they are stored energy. Fossil is stored sunlight from 500 million years ago, as in stored in chemical compounds created by the life that existed at that time by eating plants that harvested the sunlight by photosynthesis. (The same things our silar panels are doing after all).

For geothermal it becomes a bit more complicated, as it is part chemical energy of the matter that makes up the earth, and part kinetic energy left overs from the creation of the planet. Only very well isolated by the crust.

And here is the crux of the question: how much energy is stored in the core and will human intervention be able to change anything in the equilibrium of the core? In a way I want us to be able and in a way I don't. Because if the human outtake of energy is miniscule it won't matter and then the problem is moot. However if we are able to affect the core, we could possibly charge the core and its ability to deflect the solar wind, which might come in handy...

Regardless, for all of them, they release more energy into the atmosphere than the sun put there and thus will affect the energy equilibrium. But that is probably such a small problem that it might not do any difference in total. What is it they say? 1% of the energy that hits the earth from the sun would supply all our energy needs? So probably not that much of effect.

Well... At this point it begins to be debatable whether big tech is its own worst enemy or not. I mean, I'm sure there are competitions that wants to fill their shoes, but at this point big data seems to be alienating everyone and their brother.

Which, in the end will make a "no renewables"-stance untenable, since renewables are the only way of growing the energy sector fast enough.

No, not at all. Pure geopolitcs. In this case a double win, where china ties these countries closer to itself through investment and in some cases can electricity produced fairly close, but west of China benefit china directly after sundown.

This is how the long game is played.

For a long time I imagined an oil war at the end of oil where the powers that be would fight for the last drips of the stuff. Never did I imagine it would be over before it even broke out. Nor that the US would be loosing, making themselves uniquely dependent on such a commodity.

China's strive for energy and Europe's wake up call three years ago has paved the way for decarbonisation of the energy sector faster than I thought possible. And that in spite of the "deny defend depose"-campaign pushing for nuclear in 15 years time, which could well have gotten traction had Russia, and now the US, not turned expansive...