alt Hacker NewsIt's funny, my reaction was the exact opposite. Details like this show that they're fundamentally unserious and focused on the wrong things. Imagine if Germany, when developing their automotive industry, spent all their time focusing on reusing the waste heat from production to heat homes instead of just building great cars. They probably would not have sold many cars!
Replies
In most German cities (and even many villages), district heating is a rather common utility offering. There's pipes everywhere to move around the hot water to people's homes, and the water is typically heated by the waste heat from gas plants and waste heat from factories (though increasingly being supplemented with giant heat pumps).
This isnt some novel thing in Germany, selling excess heat from some energy intensive commercial proccess is pretty standard. The local district heating operator probably took care of almost all the infrastructure for them.
Survival! Wrong thing! Stay away! Sell cars, that's what you've got to do, at any price.
Two weeks ago a heatwave linked to climate change killed in Germany an excess 1300 people [1, 2]. It was the deadliest single day of the last 25 years [3] - the mean numbers of deaths per day is 2400 while June 29 reports 4800.
If the attitude to a German AI effort using renewables is to object "but think of the benchmarks!" that feels like a step in the wrong direction in general and, with this particular context, also in particular.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4d2vv935lo
[2] https://www.dw.com/en/germany-june-heat-wave-linked-to-5000-...
Imagine Canada being on fire due to global warming while you write this comment.
That is funny because Germany did in fact use the process ("waste") heat from steel mills for district heating on a large scale. The steel was then used by the automotive industry, among other things. We're talking 50+ years ago.