Re: AI in space Re: Does It Make Sense To Put Data Centers In

[Keith Lofstrom]

Space?
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7QdQ6XQwCtsy+jCXGxW_S8hNp8X8OBF1Gs4rVBVFE7=g...@mail.gmail.com>
Keith L. wrote> "The resulting CO₂ will trap vastly more terawatts
for GIGAYEARS."

On Tue, Dec 16, 2025 at 06:13:53PM -0800, Keith Henson wrote:
> I could be wrong, but I doubt it. I have been writing about the
> opposite problem of not enough CO2 to keep the Earth warm for 35
> years. Why? Carbon is the best construction material. With
> nanotechnology and sunlight, you can suck it out of the air and build
> anything you like.

Yes, I should have written "megayears". Around 200MY
from now, the slow increase in the Sun's output will
will boil the Earth ... unless we move it outwards.

----

We already have "nanotechnology" that sucks CO₂ out of
the air to make building materials - the wood of trees.
Trees are slower than we would like ...

But so is macro-nanotechnology, which has delivered
practically nothing over the decades we've talked and
talked and talked about it.

Nanotechnology, space colonies, century life extension
(and launch loop and server sky) ... reality refuses
to deliver. Mostly because we talk rather than make.
When all is said and done, more is said than done.

Me included - I'm sitting here typing this rather than
completing projects to future-proof my house so it can
survive climate change, resource depletion, and my own
accumulating infirmities. Actual "making" in the real
world is iterative - many fails before a success.

Perhaps a fool's errand; our 0.7 acre suburban lot will
be worth far more if this 2.4Ksf house is torn down and
replaced with three 3.5Ksf houses spaced with driveways
and decks and no trees or grass. Our skyrocketing
property tax assumes this has already happened.

Weeks after we sell, all my work will end up in a landfill,
and our gardens replaced with concrete foundations and
pavement. That may be "green", indirectly; the alternative
would be two more houses (and the roads to connect them)
at the urban boundary edge, replacing forest and farm.

But NONE of that stops the hockey-stick increase of CO₂
accumulating in our atmosphere. Fission power would,
but carbonista propaganda has convinced us that nuclear
(which admittedly killed thousands) is vastly worse
than carbon technologies that have killed hundreds of
millions. Space solar power will also be attacked if
it ever happens; the carbonistas won't go away quietly.

Classic space solar power would use microwave spectrum
to move power. That spectrum is already fully occupied
moving tweets between billions of people. Multiply
the opposition by THOUSANDS compared to nuclear power.

That's why I favor using space power IN SPACE, making
expensive but weightless information products.
Megawatt AI instances, for example.

As is, we deploy way more new coal-fueled power plants
today to make electricity for computation, even in
here in hydropowered Oregon. Amazon and Facebook and
Google data centers demand coal power, because we've run
out of rivers to hydrodam (even far north into Canada).

----

Ah well. Back to adding electric current monitoring
(Emporia Vue) to my house. I measure before I make.

Keith L.

--
Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com