Monday, December 14, 2009

[Hilarious irony and spin]: Boulder climate center will build [coal-powered] supercomputer in Wyoming - The Denver Post
Taxed by increasingly complex requests for climate modeling, the National Center for Atmospheric Research will build a new supercomputer — but house it in Wyoming, not Boulder.

NCAR officials explained that the huge amounts of comparatively inexpensive electricity and space required for the $500 million computer upgrade are more easily had in Wyoming.
...
Cheaper and more plentiful electricity from Wyoming's relatively untapped grid, including wind-generated power, is a key factor, said NCAR engineer Gary New, who maintains the current machine.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, a kilowatt- hour of electricity, as averaged across all price structures for residential, commercial and industrial users, costs 8.16 cents in Colorado, compared with 6.03 cents in Wyoming.
From this PDF:
In 2007, electric power generated in Wyoming primarily came from coal (94.6 percent).
Note that the article above carefully avoids mentioning coal; the intention is clearly to mislead you into believing that this will be a wind-powered supercomputer.

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