I don’t know who this Google and Microsoft people are, but I wonder if they have the same capital drawing power available to them as Kevin O’Leary?
Google turns to nuclear to power AI data centres Google has signed a deal to use small nuclear reactors to generate the vast amounts of energy needed to power its artificial intelligence (AI) data centres.
The company says the agreement with Kairos Power will see it start using the first reactor this decade and bring more online by 2035.
Data Center owners turn to nuclear as potential energy source Last month, Constellation Energy announced a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) to provide electricity to Microsoft data centers in the mid-Atlantic region from the Unit 1 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.
Honestly, this would be great.
But we knows its not happening. There is no climate for nuclear, and the cost is crazy compared to almost anything else, and the timeline to get it built is not feasible.
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One of the projects I'm working on is in a 'data center' park near Reno. The size of these facilities is unlike anything I've seen in my life. I was as shocked as I was the first time I drove through Sherwood Park and saw the size of the refineries.
One of the emerging issues is the impact that these data centers are having on electricity costs. Arizona is looking at setting a separate tariff for data center customers and they are driving up power prices/causing supply shortages in Washington state.
The massive loads of these data centers are suspected to cause power system harmonics issues that will also need addressing. I do think that this is very similar to the issues Alberta is experiencing with inverter based resources causing frequency issues. Both of these are engineering challenges that are fixable, but it's something that I am keeping an eye on.
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Spot price as a gas commodity values that at ~2.3 Trillion USD... and if we could wave a wand to convert all of it to BTC without collapsing crypto or energy markets... that same heat potential would have a value of 89 Trillion USD!
Natural gas has practical value. Bitcoin has none. From an actual "what makes the planet better to live on" perspective emitting carbon for bitcoin is awful and we should be creating policies to ensure it does not happen.
Destroying the Maldives and our energy reserves for currency could be sane from a self-interest perspective but absolutely insane from a global one.
One of the projects I'm working on is in a 'data center' park near Reno. The size of these facilities is unlike anything I've seen in my life. I was as shocked as I was the first time I drove through Sherwood Park and saw the size of the refineries.
One of the emerging issues is the impact that these data centers are having on electricity costs. Arizona is looking at setting a separate tariff for data center customers and they are driving up power prices/causing supply shortages in Washington state.
The massive loads of these data centers are suspected to cause power system harmonics issues that will also need addressing. I do think that this is very similar to the issues Alberta is experiencing with inverter based resources causing frequency issues. Both of these are engineering challenges that are fixable, but it's something that I am keeping an eye on.
This is fascinating as I hadn't heard about the bad harmonics issue. I wonder if cheap, small, load funded and localized batteries would be the answer? We don't get Chinese prices but they're now less than $90 USD/kwh installed. That probably undercuts most other solutions if properly located? I have no idea
As for data center loads increasing power consumption overnight (not necessarily what you're proposing here but the sentiment is ubiquitous), I'm not sure the semiconductor supply chain has any hope in supplying the demand for such a deployment. It's not like there's spare capacity laying around. This will buy utilities some time, but houses do need to start getting in order fairly quickly for sure.
The impact of rising electricity prices will inevitably delay important decarbonization adoption in key technologies like heat pumps because the spark gap between gas and electricity will likely get worse. The flip side here is that with so many new LNG terminals gas price will still rise a fair bit as US household will be competing with high paying Europe for their gas. Overall energy prices will rise for households considerably and there's pain ahead I think. On the flip side, solar and batteries are much more attractive in that scenario too.
One of the projects I'm working on is in a 'data center' park near Reno. The size of these facilities is unlike anything I've seen in my life. I was as shocked as I was the first time I drove through Sherwood Park and saw the size of the refineries.
One of the emerging issues is the impact that these data centers are having on electricity costs. Arizona is looking at setting a separate tariff for data center customers and they are driving up power prices/causing supply shortages in Washington state.
The massive loads of these data centers are suspected to cause power system harmonics issues that will also need addressing. I do think that this is very similar to the issues Alberta is experiencing with inverter based resources causing frequency issues. Both of these are engineering challenges that are fixable, but it's something that I am keeping an eye on.
The cluster that xAI setup was so big that they needed to install Megapacks to actually power the cluster, and the grid / diesel generators charged the Megapacks.
Megapacks can deliver consistent baseload power needs. There just needs to be enough of them to power the facility for x amount of time, and then renewable sources (solar, wind, etc) can be used to charge the Megapacks, with other non renewable sources also available for the brunt of it, i.e. natural gas.
Quote:
The electrical grid can easily crash with electrical volatility. Think about how power surges can fry your computer or your appliances.
Non-AI datacenters, with steady year-round power usage, were grid-friendly.
By leveraging Megapacks, $xAI effectively reduces grid pressure: “xAI found millisecond power fluctuations when GPUs start training, causing issues with power infrastructure.
The solution was to use generators to charge the Tesla Megapacks, which then discharge to power the training jobs.
This is fascinating as I hadn't heard about the bad harmonics issue. I wonder if cheap, small, load funded and localized batteries would be the answer? We don't get Chinese prices but they're now less than $90 USD/kwh installed. That probably undercuts most other solutions if properly located? I have no idea
As for data center loads increasing power consumption overnight (not necessarily what you're proposing here but the sentiment is ubiquitous), I'm not sure the semiconductor supply chain has any hope in supplying the demand for such a deployment. It's not like there's spare capacity laying around. This will buy utilities some time, but houses do need to start getting in order fairly quickly for sure.
The impact of rising electricity prices will inevitably delay important decarbonization adoption in key technologies like heat pumps because the spark gap between gas and electricity will likely get worse. The flip side here is that with so many new LNG terminals gas price will still rise a fair bit as US household will be competing with high paying Europe for their gas. Overall energy prices will rise for households considerably and there's pain ahead I think. On the flip side, solar and batteries are much more attractive in that scenario too.
There are hundreds of billions being invested into AI right now, from data centers, clusters to train, power needs, semi-conducter needs, GPU needs, etc. Its insane what is going on.
But at the same time it is becoming very obvious that the world is not building power generating capacity fast enough, and that even traditional areas like Virginia with a lot of data centers are still burning coal to provide baseload power needs. To think that this isn't happening, and that somehow we've moved on from coal is pretty naive, and one can think that without cleaner sources that can deliver high power production, coal will be used more. This means we go backwards on emissions.
It is also naive to think that restarting old nuclear plants is an option.
Also naive to think that solar & wind can deliver baseload needs.
Also naive to think that battery & storage technology can keep up with what is coming.
Naive to think new nuclear plants are an option.
Naive to think SMRs are an option.
Yes, we all WISH they would work, but the political climate in North America is not one where we can actually execute on nuclear power generation at a cost that makes sense.
We need consistent and cost effective baseload power needs immediately, and natural gas is the only way to do that.
Funny enough, if we'd invest in natural gas in Canada, the technology that Canada has developed (i.e. Alberta) to provide LNG at the lowest emissions anywhere in the world would get even better.
Has to be frustrating from an investment standpoint, seeing so much potential, and how Canada is wasting it. PP is wrong on a lot of things, but he is 100% right that we should be the richest country in the world with the amount of resources we have, and literally being right next to the biggest economy in the world.
The cluster that xAI setup was so big that they needed to install Megapacks to actually power the cluster, and the grid / diesel generators charged the Megapacks.
Megapacks can deliver consistent baseload power needs. There just needs to be enough of them to power the facility for x amount of time, and then renewable sources (solar, wind, etc) can be used to charge the Megapacks, with other non renewable sources also available for the brunt of it, i.e. natural gas.
Yes to all of this and it's precisely why AZ is looking at a tariff to cover this use case. Being able to adjust the draw from the grid as a form of arbitrage is increasing costs for other consumers who can't do that. Batteries + Statcom solutions are proving to be quite cost effective to address power quality issues for sensitive facility like oil and gas extraction and data centers. We designed a solution like this that's under construction up in the land of the No Goods.
__________________ It's only game. Why you heff to be mad?
One of the projects I'm working on is in a 'data center' park near Reno. The size of these facilities is unlike anything I've seen in my life. I was as shocked as I was the first time I drove through Sherwood Park and saw the size of the refineries.
One of the emerging issues is the impact that these data centers are having on electricity costs. Arizona is looking at setting a separate tariff for data center customers and they are driving up power prices/causing supply shortages in Washington state.
The massive loads of these data centers are suspected to cause power system harmonics issues that will also need addressing. I do think that this is very similar to the issues Alberta is experiencing with inverter based resources causing frequency issues. Both of these are engineering challenges that are fixable, but it's something that I am keeping an eye on.
__________________ The Beatings Shall Continue Until Morale Improves!
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If you thought this season would have a happy ending, you haven't been paying attention.
This is fascinating as I hadn't heard about the bad harmonics issue. I wonder if cheap, small, load funded and localized batteries would be the answer? We don't get Chinese prices but they're now less than $90 USD/kwh installed. That probably undercuts most other solutions if properly located? I have no idea
As for data center loads increasing power consumption overnight (not necessarily what you're proposing here but the sentiment is ubiquitous), I'm not sure the semiconductor supply chain has any hope in supplying the demand for such a deployment. It's not like there's spare capacity laying around. This will buy utilities some time, but houses do need to start getting in order fairly quickly for sure.
The impact of rising electricity prices will inevitably delay important decarbonization adoption in key technologies like heat pumps because the spark gap between gas and electricity will likely get worse. The flip side here is that with so many new LNG terminals gas price will still rise a fair bit as US household will be competing with high paying Europe for their gas. Overall energy prices will rise for households considerably and there's pain ahead I think. On the flip side, solar and batteries are much more attractive in that scenario too.
do you mean $900/kWh? Where are you finding battery systems installed for $90/kWh?
The bids were opened on December 4, and according to PV Mag, has attracted prices ranging from $US60.5/kWh to $US82/kWh, with an averaging of $US66.3/kWh. It said 60 of the bids were below $68.4/kWh.
Quote:
The price reportedly includes a comprehensive range of services beyond the delivery of storage equipment, including system design, installation guidance, commissioning, 20-year maintenance, and integrated safety features.
“(These are) mind-blowing numbers,” said Marek Kubik, a co- founder of US-based battery technology company Fluence, and now a director of Saudi green energy project Neom. “(This is) system pricing, not cells,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
Aren't there suggestions for using the waste heat in but coin mining in a manner to reduce waste?
Could the same be done for the data centres for something like a greenhouse so that the carbon for growing and transport of certain foods could be reduced?
Or dumb ideas like surrounding cannabis warehouses with miners to make them more viable?
Maybe not everything has to be reduce energy at every level, but instead reduce overall "wastage and pollutants"?
