Man kann das als Zeichen von Bündnistreue sehen, oder auch als blindes, aber bewusstes, eingehen einer toxischen Beziehung. Da sollten eigentlich alle Alarmglocken angehen.

I’m gonna be a bit nit-picky here. You linked the “Low-carbon” source, which includes nuclear energy. Granted, long discussions can be had, whether nuclear counts as green energy, but besides that, I’d argue that nuclear should not be used to generate hydrogen - if at all it should be used the same as hydrogen would be used: to bridge gaps when not enough renewable energy is available.

If you switch to renewables-only in the source just above that graph, the world is, according to latest data (2025), at 33.76% electricity generation from renewables. So when it comes to share of electricity generation with renewables we’re on par with sometime around the 1950s. If you switch that graph to absolute generation and fossil fuels, you can see that electricity generation from fossil fuels has not yet started to decline.

On top of all that, this is electricity generation, not primary energy use. For primary energy use we’re currently at 8.59% world-wide.

I’m not saying this to make us give in, I’m just saying that there is a long way to go - 100 years are (hopefully) a bit too much, but it’s definitely not around the corner. And as an aside maybe also highlight that reductions in (primary) energy consumption are as important as ever.

That’s why I have a dedicated bathing toaster!

True, that’s what they propose in the article, but it’s not like you get pure wood powder back, it’s a wood-epoxy powder mixture. To which you then add epoxy to make new stuff… at some point you just have a mass of epoxy with traces of wood. That’s downcycling at best.

Not sure how serious/scientific the author of the article is, as they also propose using the powder as mulch, which sounds like an ecological nightmare when considering that it’s mixed with epoxy. But that might not have been the idea of the engineers who designed the wooden blades.

I’m not saying this technology is bad, even if the wooden blades get burned in the end at least they are not left as landfill like the ones right now.

Recyclable doesn’t mean that it’s worth recycling them. Look for “wind turbine graveyards” (but also beware, there seem to be a lot of AI generated images -.-).

However I also don’t see how these wooden versions are much better. According to the article they are glued together using epoxy. They propose grinding it down and making other stuff with it. I guess in the best case it gets burned in the end.

Thank you for telling us about it!

Fun indeed! How can you not give more information on something like that and just leave us hanging?

I found the Missoula floods that fit your description. Seems like we’re in for fun times ahead. Then again, it’s unlikely that the glacial lakes reform in the current climate, so maybe we just get to witness one devastating flood per glacier…

That’s what you get if you chose actual scientists as ministers of energy. Proper politics directed towards decarbonizing in a sustainable way. I’m jealous.

Yes and no. It is possible for someone earning 70k/year to emit below the average (let’s also keep in mind that the goal is not to be below the average, but to be at 0 emissions/impact), but everything you can buy has a CO2/environment-cost related to it.

As soon as you spend more, you have a higher impact. Of course there are more and less impactful ways of consumption, so you do raise a good point, but we’re not going to consume our way out of this misery.

A really nice book I shove down the throat of every single one of my friends who’s not running away fast enough is The Day the World Stops Shopping, in case you have way too much time at hand ^^

Or the printed copy!

It’s not like those major social media sites don’t have some kind of data center (or rent one) in every “major” (population wise) timezone they operate in. Your other arguments still hold true, but I think even then it would be better for all of us if those websites went down every now and then.

Yeah, that’s surely gonna work. As if the people dying from the heat right now aren’t too many already. I’m somewhat sure you’re not being serious, and while I see where you’re coming from, that would be treating symptoms at best. As long as society doesn’t fundamentally change, other “high consumers” would emerge again, and we’d be back where we started

That’s also what’s so frustrating to me. The world could be so much better, people just seem to not care. Summer really sucks currently, now I don’t just have winter depression, but also summer… anxiety? Haven’t thought of a good term yet. I’ve had this post open in a tab the last two days, and I do intend to write something, I just haven’t found the time yet, as I’m quite sure the length of the comment will get out of hand. Just know that you’re not alone with those thoughts.

Then I misunderstood that, but I still don’t agree. The “surplus energy” of the renewables is not really there. Granted, in some regions (not really sure about the USA, though, I don’t have data on that), renewables can provide > 100% of the required electricity for a few hours per day, but that’s not really a lot of surplus energy. If it was, they wouldn’t have to build power plants just for the data centers.

You even kind of mention that with

because this demand is outstripping even the excess supply

Electricity price definitely is a factor for data centers, but having electricity 24/7 is even more important to them. Also, what made AI feasible was the usage of GPUs or even more specialized hardware, that is tailored to those tasks. Machine learning as a concept has been around since the 1980s or even earlier, not just the last 20 years. Paradoxically, that increase in efficiency caused a drastic increase in total power consumption for AI.

Germany 1923.

Now that it’s not completely unfeasable thanks to renewable energy

Are we living in the same reality? Renewable energy has nothing to do with machine learning or especially LLMs being feasible. The data centers used/being built for AI use some of the dirtiest form of energy you can use, because it’s cheaper or easier available.

Point in case: Data centers are being built off-grid using gas turbines. In fact, the planned amount of gas-powered data centers use more electricity than Germany.

Also, they are not even using proper gas power plants for that, mostly just gas turbines, which are cheaper and faster to install, but way less efficient.

They don’t care about the power use of their data centers, and especially not whether they are renewable.

Naja gut, etwas Eigenverantwortung würde ich bei Betrachtung der Werte dann doch erwarten. Die meisten Messstationen haben sogar eine “Clear Sky” Prognose (also die maximale UV-Belastung bei wolkenfreiem Himmel), und selbst wenn nicht, kann man den etwaigen Verlauf aus vergangenen Tagen gut abschätzen. Wenn dann die näheste Messstation einen Wert angibt, der sehr niedrig ist, aber bei einem selbst die Sonne runterbrennt, dann könnte man eventuell selbst erahnen, dass das nicht ganz passt.

An sich spricht ja nichts dagegen, dass alle gut aufgeklärt über die UV-Belastung sind, aber bei solchen Geräten denke ich mir, das ist halt wieder ein Stück Elektroschrott mehr, das dann - im Besten Fall - irgendwann ungenutzt rumliegt.

Würde mich interessieren, was genau der Anwendungsfall von solchen Messgeräten ist. UV-Strahlung ist jetzt nichts sonderlich lokales, wofür man ein eigenes Messgerät braucht, das BfS stellt die Daten der Messstationen online zur Verfügung (Hier die Übersichtskarte mit auswählbaren Messstationen und hier z.B. Berlin).

Und es ist auch nicht so, als würde sich die UV-Strahlung von Tag zu Tag stark ändern, das Wetter sorgt ja höchstens dafür, dass die Strahlung niedriger als erwartet ist.

Sure, those are valid things to get “nervous” about, but that’s also possible with other pots and pans. Usually cooktop glass is hard enough to withstand metal moving on top of it, as long as you don’t deliberately try to scratch it.

As for the abrasiveness, I have a cast iron pan that’s coated with I think enamel at the bottom only. Not sure how common that is. But I also haven’t had problems with the ones that are not coated.

The weight is definitely a good point - handling them is a bit more difficult than the “lighter” pans, that can’t be argued away.

Haha, okay, if you’re juggling with your pans… But I also wouldn’t recommend doing that with other pots and pans, I don’t think the cooktop would handle them that much better.