Re:Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's ...
by unchocked on Thursday December 03, 2015 @02:45AM
(#10668369)
Doubt it. If the price of electricity goes up 20%, the cost of computing goes up <20%. Sellers of computing pass that cost onto consumers.
I don't know anyone who would go out of business if their server bill went up 20%, especially if it went up the same for their competitors.
Re:Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's ...
by crdoconnor on Thursday December 03, 2015 @04:49AM
(#10668747)
Aluminium smelters in Germany are actually getting a big subsidy. They're varying their electricity usage based upon the output of Germany's solar/wind farms and getting paid a hefty sum to do so (possibly too much).
This is having a negative impact on other smelters across the world.
Effectively they're doing the same job we were always told batteries would do.
Re:Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's ...
by greglindahl on Thursday December 03, 2015 @05:28AM
(#10668864)
If they're paying a fair amount for electricity, it's not a subsidy. And it's probably not a minute-timescale change like batteries. Energy storage and batteries are quite different things.
Re:Elon Musk: Only a Carbon Tax Will Accelerate the World's ...
by ZeroGravitas on Thursday December 03, 2015 @06:40AM
(#10669076)
Microsoft already implements an internal carbon tax, so those sectors of Microsoft are already paying some amount for this.
I think they spend the money raised on efficiency and sourcing clean energy.
Interestingly, the aluminum smelters in the mountains behind Portland closed down when the datacenters moved in and bought all the cheap hydro electricity they used to use.
My guess is that a tax increase on electricity will hit the Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft and other "cloud businesses" pretty hard...