Google and Microsoft consume more energy than 100+ countries | Windows Central

filister@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 573 points –
Microsoft and Google's electricity consumption surpasses the power usage of over 100 countries
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And both of these companies build and purchased more renewable energy sources than all 100+ countries combined. Microsoft has committed to be carbon free by 2030, and while I don't belive in their commitment, they at least seem to be trying contrary to most nations. They even invested in nuclear plants for their power needs.

You can fault both companies for a lot of different reasons, but in terms of carbon emissions due to power usage, they are better than 99.9% of the countries on that list.

They didn’t build it. They buy from local suppliers, power that could have been used by people and companies already there. Now it’s just a lot more, while a serious part of the power consumption goes into debatable purposes like overhyped AI stuff.

Edit: and fwiw, recently Microsoft themselves announced that they are far from their reduction targets roadmap, so not sure where you got the happy flow news from

Green energy that could go to higher priority sectors like decarborning housing, food production and transportation . Carbon free doesn't mean no ecological impact, of course it's better than fossil fuel, but it still a lot of ressources extracted and place taken over nature (which is the first cause of biodiversity loss). So ideally we should only destroy so much for essential needs.

Meh, it's all smoke and mirrors.

This is the "manufacture more to use fewer resources" nonsense of cash for clunkers.