Makes a lot of sense as described, basically recycling using turbines retired for flight, but I wonder how efficient these retrofitted gas turbine generators are compared to turbines originally designed and built for this fuel and application.
Edit: Turns out GE makes these things called LM2500 gas turbines and they're pretty much the same thing, CF6 aero turbines set up for power generation. They're advertised as being 35-39% efficient, which makes them rather on the less efficient end of the gas turbine spectrum. But they're light and quick to start so they have seem a lot of use in ships and some peaker plants. They definitely aren't the best turbine to be running a data center with long term, but if they can make them cheap and available that might be good enough. Not a new idea though.
I bet the thermodynamic efficiency of an aircraft jet power plant would be far less than that of purpose built turbine.
An aviation jet is designed to efficiently generate thrust at minimal weight. A power plant turbine is designed to efficiently turn the generator, and weight is no object.
I have a weird question. Wouldn't it be simpler just like not run AI when there is no green power available? Surely you could save running tasks on disk and then wake them up again when there is green power available?
This isn't exactly novel. I was recently visiting a gas peaker plant in the EU, built 10-15 years ago. It uses two jet turbines as found on a 747 (didn't ask for the exact type).
Gotta love this... The companies running these (Amazon, Google) push hard on the narrative of how green they are, but their executives fly private everywhere and their data centers run on gas jet engines.
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Edit: Turns out GE makes these things called LM2500 gas turbines and they're pretty much the same thing, CF6 aero turbines set up for power generation. They're advertised as being 35-39% efficient, which makes them rather on the less efficient end of the gas turbine spectrum. But they're light and quick to start so they have seem a lot of use in ships and some peaker plants. They definitely aren't the best turbine to be running a data center with long term, but if they can make them cheap and available that might be good enough. Not a new idea though.
An aviation jet is designed to efficiently generate thrust at minimal weight. A power plant turbine is designed to efficiently turn the generator, and weight is no object.
Different trade-offs.
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/turbine-shortage-...