• Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The power of 21000 homes for advertising.

    What’s most impressive is that it is even legal.

        • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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          6 months ago

          Probably because they’re not doing much with it. It’s $100/person to see the basic “Planet Earth” showing and almost $200 to see The Grateful Dead show. Previously they showed a Phish show. That’s it for options, and none of it sounds really appealing to me.

        • blakemiller@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          This way some faulty internet lore. The money losses were from a fluke of timing the opening date of operations versus when quarterly finances were reported. Big startup costs meant the first numbers looked silly until they had enough events to get steady profits. They’re doing fine now.

          Internet should’ve known better too. It’s hard to lose in Vegas and the investors obviously knew what they were doing. The power costs are shocking for sure though. Yikes!

    • treadful@lemmy.zip
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      6 months ago

      I love this kind of shit. Building things for the sake of it is worth it. Not only as just expression, which may be hubris but it’s still expression. Also entertainment, inspiration, pushing the art of engineering, and just giving people something to do, and all the good that comes with that like personal and trade growth.

      A purely utilitarian life is a life only spent on survival. Not a life I want to live.

        • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          If this is something you feel strongly about, then please stop eating factory farmed meat and animal products if you havent already. It is something you personally can actually do. It helps, and it will genuinely make you feel better. You may not have much power, but using the power you do have to help the team you claim to be on instead of the other team is a massive step forward.

            • Teppichbrand@feddit.org
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              6 months ago

              I don’t agree. The comment points out the single most effektive move an individal without political nor financial power can make to cut personal co2-emissions with just a change of habit. It’s not about veganism, animal rights or your health, it’s just about sanity. Us still eating meat even though we know better is an incredibly dumb waste of energy for the sake of pleasure, exactly like this shitty powereating globe.
              As long as >95% of the global population still consumes meat I understand the urge to bring this topic everywhere.

                • AIhasUse@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  And you are one of those “every problem on the planet is the fault of someone else other than me so I can do whatever I want with no regard for it’s affect on anyone else” people. Stay away from us if you can’t be bothered to carry your own weight, you just drag down people who actually give a shit about something other than their own immediate selfish gratification.

              • Jrockwar@feddit.uk
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                6 months ago

                Take a train instead of a flight. Cycle to work or take public transport instead of driving. Install a heat pump or solar in your house. There are a million things people can do to cut down their emissions that can be as effective as becoming herbivores, depending on each one’s personal situation.

                Plus, I don’t have the numbers in my head but I’m pretty sure a locally grown fillet of chicken is more environmentally friendly than an avocado that has travelled across the Atlantic, so “buy local” would be probably better advice.

                • Teppichbrand@feddit.org
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                  6 months ago

                  Yeah, so many things one should do. Yet nothing is as simple as paying for a different product next time you’re shopping your groceries.
                  Avocados are way less harmfull to our planet than local meat. People keep bringing this up so often it’s #20 on the Vegan Bullshit Bingo.

              • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                6 months ago

                The comment points out the single most effektive move an individal without political nor financial power can make to cut personal co2-emissions with just a change of habit.

                eating meat doesn’t emit co2

                • danc4498@lemmy.world
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                  6 months ago

                  Producing that meat does.

                  Note that the commenter didn’t say to quit all eating meat. They just said to quit eating “factory farmed” meat.

                  It’s not about eating meat, it’s about factory farming the meat and the damage to the environment caused by it.

            • treadful@lemmy.zip
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              6 months ago

              You came in here with your absolutist utilitarian life above all else or we all die post just to respond with this because someone suggested you to stop eating meat. Beautiful.

            • Jerkface (any/all)@lemmy.ca
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              5 months ago

              That’s not veganism, that’s environmentalism. Veganism is recognizing that animals have the right not to be treated as property and have atrocities visited upon them. That the experiences of animals are real and matter. That their suffering is identical in nature to your own.

              Avoiding animal products for the good of the environment has nothing to do with veganism. At least understand what your childish knee-jerk reactions are actually reacting to.

          • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            6 months ago

            It helps,

            no, it doesnt. despite the existence of vegans, meat production increases every year, year over year.

        • treadful@lemmy.zip
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          6 months ago

          I’d prefer if it weren’t. Though that’s not the only use for this thing.

      • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        This isn’t pushing any boundaries, though. This is off the shelf technology. Anybody can do something big by throwing a shit ton of money at it. It would be pushing boundaries of tech or art if it was for instance super power efficient, or mind bending in any way. This is a fucking sphere, it’s the simplest shape and a rip off of the pyramids but less original and not even comparable in terms of durability.

        • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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          6 months ago

          It is absolutely pushing boundaries to be driving this many pixels at a frame rate that doesn’t take minutes to refresh. I build a lot of projects with addressable LEDs and the typical hobbyist stuff chokes out when you start trying to control more than a thousand or so. This thing has 256 million pixels inside and 1.2 million outside.

        • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.de
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          6 months ago

          Could it not be argued that building this thing now gives people a chance at looking at the power draw and attempting to make it super efficient? Like now people have a tool to test things on.

          • danc4498@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            They did mention that they are working on making 70% of this powered by solar panels. Maybe this will push forward solar technology in some way.

      • JJROKCZ@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Sure but we’re burning tons of coal to have this thing advertise minion movies, not anything artistic or worthwhile.

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 months ago

      Advertising? This thing is essentially a theater. Yeah, it can run advertisement but anything with a screen can do that. It’s like saying a movie theatre is for advertising.

      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        It’s a 400 foot tall screen that’s constantly on and in view, even at night, which plays ads like 90% of the time. Calling it “essentially a theatre” is a huge understatement.

        • Vash63@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          But the energy usage is quoted as peak for the entire venue - which is literally a theater / concert hall. It opened with a live U2 performance. The energy usage isn’t just for the displays, it includes all the power for the entire building, the concert speakers, heating/cooling, indoor lighting, any kitchen equipment, etc.

  • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Currently, an agreement is under review to ensure that 70% of the Sphere’s power needs will come from solar sources, with the other 30% from non-renewable energy that will be offset by renewable energy credits.

    Ahh yes, energy credits. AKA bullshit.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Hey!

      They’re not always BS. Just most of the time!

      Or are they? Some of the companies who are the best at it and seem to be genuinely trying have been shown not to be able to guarantee one way or the other.

      “Wait, someone cut down that forest we planted?!” (no joke)


      Edit: see REC clarification below (thanks!)

      • RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Just to be clear, renewable energy credits are different than carbon offsets, and easier to guarantee because they’re often tied directly to a metered renewable energy source.

        That said, there are still junk RECs on the market, like those tied to energy that was produced up to 2 decades ago that nobody got around to claiming / retiring. Or RECs tied to energy sources that may have happened regardless of the REC sale.

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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          Ohhh good point! Wanted to edit that into my comment there even, thank you.

          The junk RE credits are really interesting. As is the “ha we were building that solar farm no matter what!” problem - reminds me of when that happens in… tax deductions I think.

      • PunnyName@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        At least I understand forests that are replanted over and over to be used for lumber, effectively reducing the use of old lumber for myriad products.

    • nikita@sh.itjust.works
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      Energy credits — what a bunch of vacuous rhetoric.

      The reality is that it’s energy being taken away from the overall grid, requiring a larger grid and thus prolonging our dependence on non renewable energy while we build up renewable sources.

      If we weren’t so wasteful with our energy we wouldn’t need as much of it and it’d be easier to go fully renewable.

      • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Well this is not good math at all. If you create a project and offset all its power requirements, you haven’t added anything to the grid. The alternative is to not do stuff, which is not going to happen anytime soon*, so it’s a net good thing and needs to be incentivized, not disparaged.

        *Well it will happen after the water wars and plagues wipe us out, and the sphere will stop drawing any energy at that point.

    • CaliforniaSober@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Consider ”hate credits”… like imagine the KKK can do whatever it wants so long as they claim to offset it with “hate credits”…

  • danc4498@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Currently, an agreement is under review to ensure that 70% of the Sphere’s power needs will come from solar sources, with the other 30% from non-renewable energy that will be offset by renewable energy credits.

    Nevada has pledged to achieve net zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, and the solar project under construction to help offset its energy debt is estimated to complete in 2027.

    How stupid is it that somebody can claim “Net Zero” greenhouse gas emissions when 30% of their power is greenhouse gas.

    Just gonna throw this out there. Fuck credits, charge a carbon tax.

    • capital@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      We’ll also ignore the fact that that solar could have been used to offset actual needs instead of this BS.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        6 months ago

        If only Las Vegas were located somewhere that the sun shines almost all day every day. \s

        • CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          I highly doubt the operating hours of this ball of decadence match the time when solar power peaks

        • Usernameblankface@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          If only the creators of the ball had enough profit coming in to put up more solar panels and build up a battery bank for the night so they wouldn’t take anything from the grid…

            • Morphit @feddit.uk
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              6 months ago

              So build concentrated solar power and store the heat for after the sun sets. Bonus - thermal power plant turbines give inertia to the grid, which photo-voltaics don’t.

            • capital@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Regardless, that energy could be going to offset other energy currently being produced by non-renewables no matter which way you slice it.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      The word net does a lot of heavy lifting and it’s just a scam

      You can use 100% coal power and claim net zero by buying a forest

    • w2tpmf@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Well you don’t understand what “net” means.

      It doesn’t mean literally zero. It means colunm A and column B average out to zero.

      To acheive a real net zero, they have to save energy somewhere else that takes that column past 100% (Such as if their solar panels produce more energy than they use during certain times.)

      They probably just make some shit up to say their are saving extra somewhere they aren’t (so to that point, yes…credits are bullshit.)

    • Usernameblankface@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Maybe, I mean just maybe, they can run this thing only as long as the solar generated power lasts, and then turn it off 30% of the time.

    • NecroSocial@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Fuck credits, charge a carbon tax.

      IMO it seems RECs are a better solution than carbon taxes at least in situations like this. With RECs you’re buying renewable energy to offset non-renewables, with a carbon tax the company is just giving the government money for use of non-renewables. Only funds spent on RECs in this case actually go to supporting the renewable energy sector. I’m no expert in this stuff so I could be off, just how I understand it.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah, that’s in the quote. I’m more complaining about the concept of “net zero”.

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Las Vegas in general is a testament to the hubris of humanity and an admittedly impressive technical feat. Does it even exist without the Hoover Dam?

    • batmaniam@lemmy.world
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      I don’t know about power, but Vegas is actually incredibly water efficient. Due to the way the water rights work with the Colorado river, they’re not allowed very much, but it doesn’t “count” if you put it back in. So nearly every drop they use is treated and put back (probably cleaner, tbh). Boggles the brain, but somehow it’s actually a fairly sustainable city. More than any other other major metro, in any event.

      • DevopsPalmer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 months ago

        Considering they are in a literal desert, they would have to be fairly sustainable to exist in the first place. Not saying it’s not super impressive, my dad lived out there when they were building up a lot of the expanded infrastructure and he has some cool stories about how he saw the desert on the outskirts disappear as they added in all the water and transportation stuff

      • axo@feddit.de
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        6 months ago

        What do other cities do with their wastewater? Isnt that the norm?

        • batmaniam@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Thrilled you asked! So yes: Treatment is always required, but the final destination of the treated water can vary. For instance, in a lot of places they may have municipal water TO a home or business, but that may be discharged to septic, as opposed to the river. Also in a lot of areas, water may be taken out of an underground aquifer (either by private well or a municipality) but when treated it may be discharged into a river or ocean. That can create problems because if you’re near the coast, the empty space in the aquifer may be filled by salt/brackish water that can lead to salinity rises in the aquifer. To solve that some places turn to “ground water recharge”, which is just a fancy way of saying “we built a big well to put it back in the aquifer”.

          Increasingly, you’re seeing some places essentially sell their treated water. Santa Rosa CA, for instance, built an entire pipeline that goes from their treatment facility to another municipality to be injected into their groundwater.

          So yes, everywhere treats it, but the final destination makes a difference. Las Vegas (or anyone else on the river) only gets credit for what goes back into the river, so any evaporation etc is a problem. It sounds trivial, but there is a reason those other strategies exist. It essentially doubles every pipe, limits where you can park a treatment plant etc. Vegas also does some great grey water re-use. That essentially means it doesn’t go “back” but can get used many many times, limiting the initial draw.

          Wastewater is funny because it’s far from rocket science, but the numbers to implement any of it get staggering very quickly.

          • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Wastewater isn’t rocket science. It’s just harder and significantly more important. Every engineering discipline makes fun of the civils, but the fact is none of us are half as critical to modern life as them. Every benefit any of us claim rests on their backs. The flow of electricity is a civil engineering feat, the flow of water to and from our homes, businesses, and farms is a civil engineering feat (and critical to health), as is our transportation networks, our entire constructed environment, and even crazy and weird shit like controlling the location of critical rivers.

            • batmaniam@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              oh I’m not shortchanging it, I work in the field. It’s crazy how “simple” it is in concept and hard to deliver. But it’s on par with antibiotics with how many lives it’s changed. Like you said, it’s like a lot of civil stuff. A solid highway system, for instance. Just some dirt with fancy rocks on it right? Righhhhhhht?

              And don’t get me wrong, wastewater has tons of complications. Any plant is operated in equal parts science, engineering, and art. It’s a living, breathing, bioreactor. They’ve each got their own distinct personality.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              I actually thought about going into civil engineering in school, but I ended up really liking Computer Science instead. In high school, I was waffling between being a software patent attorney and a civil engineering attorney, but once I took some CS classes, I decided software patents suck and I really wanted to work with computers.

              I have a lot of respect for our civil engineers. My state is experimenting with a variety of civil engineering stuff, like paints for our highways (should help visibility in crappy winter conditions), alternative grass mixtures to cut water use (less engineering and more horticulture, but whatever), and expanding trains. I kind of wish I was involved with that, but I still really like my job, so I just follow that kind of stuff as a hobby. Bridges, trains, and tunnels rock.

              • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Yeah in retrospect I wish I’d gone civil. It wasn’t offered at my school but I went industrial because I loved both engineering and psychology. Civil would’ve meant I did more good and got less poisoned by my career

  • InvaderDJ@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    It’s funny, I think Vegas is perfectly fine as the city of sin so things like this really don’t phase me. It was built on the idea of crime and excess.

    What does seem weird to me is how in a desert, why isn’t everything solar? The sun is their only natural resource besides sand. Every rooftop and parking lot and flat surface possible seems like it should be a panel.

    • aidan@lemmy.world
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      Vegas is surrounded by empty desert, they don’t need to use rooftops and parking lots

      • fukurthumz420@lemmy.world
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        even deserts host life. it’s kind of a ecological misnomer that we could just cover the deserts of the world in solar panels. that would have serious repercussions.

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          What repercussions could covering a few acres more in the mojave with solar panels have?

        • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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          Also, the ocean is a desert with its life underground and the perfect disguise above.

        • AutistoMephisto@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Honestly if we could get space elevators figured out, the best place to put solar panels would be in the upper atmosphere. Tethered to the ground by massive columns that feed the energy they collect to massive capacitors on the ground?

    • fatalError@lemmy.sdf.org
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      Solar only works during the day. During night you need batteries which are not renewable. Mining lithium trashes ecosystems and we probably have enough for like 50 more years at this rate, cobalt is extracted through slave labour. And we’ve seen how well recycling works for other materials which are less complex. So all these renewables aren’t all that green in every aspect. Unless we solve the energy storage problem it isn’t as simple as putting up more panels.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        You know, I’m getting really sick of these comments where people think they know what they’re talking about and repeat a bunch of talking points about lithium.

        Lithium is not going to be the basis of a renewable grid. We need it for EVs because it’s the best Wh/kg that we have right now, but we don’t care so much about weight for grid storage. Cost/kg is the main measure we care about there (though there are some other considerations in specific conditions). We already have tech being deployed in the field that’s better than lithium for grid storage. Flow batteries, flywheels, pumped hydro, or just heating up sand or rocks. Others, like sodium batteries, are being manufactured and will probably find their way into real products in the next few years.

        • fatalError@lemmy.sdf.org
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          Chill, no need to be stressed. Part of the ideas you mentioned are already implemented in some cases, but they are not without drawbacks. Pumped hydro is good, but has high maintainance costs, messes with the fish and requires large bodies of water, how do you get tbat in the desert? Flywheels have good inertia, great for stabilizing the grid, Ireland has some for that exact reason, but can’t store a whole lot. And heating up roxks and sand may work if you need heat at night, but you need electricity, so you need water to turn into steam to produce it. Sodium batteries look the most promising, we’ll see how they develop. But until we get these storqge facilities built, adding more solar would only destabilise the grids even more.

            • fatalError@lemmy.sdf.org
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              What propaganda? I think you have to go back and read my post once more… The thread started from solar panels in the desert. At the moment the most widely used grid storage is pumped hydro, how will you do that in the desert? Next most used tech RIGHT NOW is lithium batteries. Other solutions exist, but how many are there implemented and ready to capture that energy right now? Oh, not so many? Then putting up more solar panels hoping that one day we have the storage for them is foolish, these panles lose efficiency over time. I don’t have an agenda to spread, there is no propaganda, I am only talking about the an issue which exists, which is energy storage, for which we have some solutions, with their pros and cons, but not close to being implemented.

      • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 months ago

        Sodium batteries (which are on the market now) are way more environmentally friendly than Lithium batteries.

        The materials are very accessible by comparison to Lithium batteries and they’re way more stable.

  • dan@upvote.au
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    6 months ago

    28,000,000 watts

    That’s usually written as 28MW. I know some Americans don’t like metric much, but one of the points of metric is that you don’t ever need to write that many zeroes - you just need to use the right prefix (kilo, mega, giga, tera, etc) on the unit.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      True, but 28 million watts really puts things in perspective when your average PSU is less than 1000w.

      • magi@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 months ago

        Exactly. This is literally a PC gamer article. Writing it out like that really puts it into perspective for the average reader.

      • dan@upvote.au
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        6 months ago

        That’s true.

        average PSU is less than 1000w

        Unrelated but I wish it was easier to find lower-wattage PSUs. My local PC store doesn’t have anything under 650W. I know modern GPUs use a lot of power, but not all PCs use a GPU! I have a home server where 400W would be more than enough, yet the smallest I could find was 550W, in stock from just one manufacturer (Be Quiet).

        • tomkatt@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I mean, it should be fine, just because the PSU can provide more watts doesn’t mean the system is actually using that much power. I have an 800w PSU in my gaming rig, but its average load is only 240 - 320w during gaming (I’ve measured it by powering the system with a portable Ecoflow battery).

            • riodoro1@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Where are you getting this from? Intuition?

              I think the quiescent current and losses are less in a well engineered psu.

              • hedidwot@lemmynsfw.com
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                6 months ago

                This is verifiable in manufactures data sheets.

                Efficiency at less than 20% and greater than 80% loads isn’t great relative to in between those ends.

                This is compounded by lower wattage PSUs being more limited with regard to features and benefits.

                If you end up with a 650w PSU and your system idles at 80 watts for the bulk of a working day you spend long periods of time in this less efficient window.

                We need to see some quality 300w to 600w designs come back onto the market.

                • schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
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                  5 months ago

                  Well, it depends on how much you’re spending: 80 plus titanium units, for example, are 90% efficient at both ends of the spectrum, which is as good as a 80 plus gold unit at the ideal 50% load.

                  Of course, they’re expensive, and thus maybe not really the best solution since the wasted power is probably never going to add up to the cost of the better PSU, but there is enough of a demand for high and low load efficiency that it’s a thing that you could go buy.

    • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      you just need to use the right prefix (kilo, mega, giga, tera, etc) on the unit.

      Oh, thanks.

      Bruh, it’s PC Gamer.

      quick edit: Hey! Why aren’t you converting it to Joules?

      • Remavas@programming.dev
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        6 months ago

        Because Joule is the SI unit of energy, meanwhile the Watt is the SI unit of power, equivalent to one Joule per second.

        “Converting” joules to watts would be like converting m/s to US dollars.

        • HerrBeter@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I liked the analogy but I do think it would be clearer to say something like joules = money in bank account and Watt = spending per second

    • yggdar@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      They say there are 16 screens inside, each with a 16k resolution. Such a screen would have 16x as many pixels as a 4k screen. The GPUs power those as well.

      For the number of GPUs it appears to make sense. 150 GPUs for the equivalent of about 256 4k screens means each GPU handles ±2 4k screens. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but it could make sense.

      The power draw of 28 MW still seems ridiculous to me though. They claim about 45 kW for the GPUs, which leaves 27955 kW for everything else. Even if we assume the screens are stupid and use 1 kw per 4k segment, that only accounts for 256 kW, leaving 27699 kW. Where the fuck does all that energy go?! Am I missing something?

      • Vanix@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        This is a complete shot in the dark but could the huge power draw come from needing some intense industrial cooling/airflow stuff in/on the sphere?

        Edit: forgot a word

        • empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 months ago

          The big power draw is because of the sheer amount of light it dumps out. You try lighting up 54,000 square meters of LED panel to a few hundred nits like a pc monitor, and see how much power it takes.

        • realharo@lemm.ee
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          6 months ago

          More likely it’s the thing that generates all that heat in the first place.

        • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 months ago

          complete shot in the dark

          Man, I wanna delay the stupid edgy joke I’m making but I can’t help myself

        • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          In the future there will be myths that we once had standards such as html but after we tried to build this sphere, god cursed us to use only incompatible proprietary protocols

      • srecko@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Yeah, 4k phone and 4k plasma tv don’t consume same ammount of energy.

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Anything most likely driving factor here?

          Extreme resolution requirements, massive number of LED elements, real-time rendering and synchronization needs, complex content processing, load distribution and redundancy, future-proofing capabilities, fraudulent kickback scheme

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Its one of the smaller atrocities in Vegas, particularly when compared to the Bellagio Fountain or the food waste generated by all those casino dining halls.

      • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        The fountains aren’t quite as wasteful as they seem. They use a lot of water compared to a house, but way less than some car washes.

    • BobGnarley@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Yeah we should have never invented televisions or records either! And don’t even get me started on cell phones. Just waste waste waste.

      Why, if it were up to me we would all still be hunting and gathering!

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Apples to oranges dude, this is for pure spectacle that wears off after five minutes. Plus any data gained from it was at the lab they prototyped it I believe in Burbank. This aint really a sign of progress, and itll be funny to see what happens to it when it inevitably breaks.

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    6 months ago

    I don’t know what they need so many GPUs for. There’s 16 displays inside, and the sphere itself has fewer pixels than even 1 of the internal displays. You could probably run the sphere off a laptop if you aren’t trying to do anything fancy.

    Maybe they plan on doing crazy live simulations on it or something. I can’t imagine what kind of displayed image would actually use all 150 of them. Nvidia A6000 cards are damn powerful.

    • Yardy Sardley@lemmy.ca
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      6 months ago

      Probably have a few cards running the displays and the rest of them mining some sphere-themed memecoin

    • shastaxc@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      I guess the practicality of the decision depends on the finances. Did they actually buy the cards or were they gifted by nvidia for free advertising?

      • xthexder@l.sw0.com
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        6 months ago

        It does seem suspiciously like they picked 150 completely arbitrarily to make the project sound impressive, when they could have easily done it with 20. I’m sure a bunch of people in the middle made a bunch of money off that transaction too. Or like you said, maybe this is Nvidia doing some guerrilla marketing

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        6 months ago

        My job has been to run things on GPUs for almost 10 years now. The only thing anyone practical is doing on that many GPUs is AI training, massive scientific simulations, or crypto mining. 1 or 2 of them is enough to run something like ChatGPT.

        Real-time graphics it turns out don’t scale well across multiple GPUs. There’s a reason SLI has gone away for consumer GPUs. At the current ratio, each of those $3000+ GPUs is only driving 8000 pixels (assuming each led puck is being used as 1 pixel, given their size). It makes no sense other than bragging rights

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    6 months ago

    Add a solar array and battery bank, a you might even have electricity left over. It’s in the desert after all.

  • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Is the ‘dystopia-sphere’ trying to compete with the torment nexus or something?

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    6 months ago

    If they reversed it (displays inside), it would be the best immersive gaming setup ever.

    Edit: looks like they are inside.

      • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
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        6 months ago

        Wait, the article says it’s “internal displays” but the picture shows images on the outside of the globe?

          • neidu2@feddit.nl
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            6 months ago

            Never heard of him nor the sphere before. Excellent video that explains the sphere, made by an excellent YouTuber.
            Excellent recommendation!

              • ours@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                Hi is willing to commit to suffer so much for the most stupid and hilarious of quests like eating at every Margaritaville in the continental US. What a legend.

        • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          It’s got both. It’s awesome. But it’s also owned by James Dolan, and he’s a douche. I say that as a big Rangers fan.

        • Jarix@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          The article says

          Those GPUs power 16 internal displays, each with a resolution of 16K, alongside 1.2 million programmable LED pucks coating the exterior of the sphere.

          Did you literally stop reading mid sentence? Or are you just not able to read good?

      • Jarix@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        9.818127340823 should be the pixel density if my numbers are correct.

        The numbers i was able to find(please correct if these numbers are not accurate)

        160,000 sqft display converted to inches 23040000 sq/inch

        16K x 16K resolution equals 15360 pixels x 15360 pixels So thats 235,929,600 pixels

        Various Notes.

        • a 55-inch 4K television, which has a pixel density of only 80.11ppi
        • iphone 12 - 360ppi
        • 14,000ppi MicroLED display is world’s densest, only 0.48mm across june 2019 approximately the size of a ladybug
          • Jarix@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Not even close to the worst pixel per inch though. That would be probably a drone array in the sky im guessing assuming they could be made to stay perfectly in sync, ppi could be as bad as you wanted it lol. This does make me wonder what the extreme limits of ppi can be and still be usable. You would probably need to be on the moon or in space to be in the ideal viewing position. Having to acount for the limitation of the speed of light to produce the picture on that “display” would be an impressive feat of engineering.

            Did you really build a dyson sphere just to build a bigger tv? Yes yes i did

            Pixel pitch takes into account viewing distance.

            The displays in the sphere are 16K displays. They look insanely better than your monitor from the ideal spot in the venue.

            Their display has 64x more pixels than yours.

  • root@precious.net
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    6 months ago

    Using the max power use of a video card to math this is ridiculous. It’s not at full TDP pushing this content. They aren’t playing max FPS 3D raytraced gaming, they’re playing videos.

    • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      What.

      The article says that, for the GPUs, they can have a “maximum power draw of 45,000 W at full tilt”.

      The 28 million W comes from the full system, and surely the massive displays, LEDs and eventually sound system makes up the bulk of that, the gfx cards are a rounding error…

    • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      Synchronizing that many screens into one/two continuous displays is not light computing work. Roughly every square foot is its own panel in commercial displays.