While I'm sure that the vast majority of this energy is going straight to AI server farms, I'm also hopeful that this will renew efforts to switch to sustainable energy sources.
Let's be honest it's one of the smartest and most useful place anyone could be investing - it's literally is whatever happens a way to contribute to mankind - even if it's just so that FB servers are off-grid ; it's still a huge win, I just hope Mark realize he has much more potential than what he is doing rn
The promise of small nuclear reactors, modular reactors, thorium or whatever else has really failed to materialize at the same time that solar and battery has just leapfrogged the entire field. Nuclear has some big advantages, but it's still mired in humongous upfront costs and the intractable issue of nuclear waste. And I think we're also about to see an explosion in enhanced geothermal. The good kind of explosion.
I wish that Meta would pay for the extension of Diablo Canyon in California. They have had to jack up already sky-high electricity rates to keep it going, after deciding nearly a decade ago that it would be uneconomical to try to extend its lifetime.
Meta's nuclear intention is a perfect example of how tech is willing to pay far more for energy than other customers, and how it's driving up everybody's costs because we are all paying for that increase at elevated prices.
Nuclear is extremely expensive, higher than geothermal, renewables backed by storage, and natural gas. Nuclear is good for virtue signaling in some communities, but from the technological and economical perspectives, nuclear is very undesirable and unattractive. It's only social factors that keep alive the idea of new nuclear in advanced Western economies, not hard nosed analysis.
Here's a new preprint from Germans showing that even for Europe, a continent with very poor solar resources for many countries, new baseload is not the most economical route:
The biggest barrier to nuclear energy in our country is the linear no-threshold safety model. We know the model is wrong, opens up operators to infinite liability, and since adopting it the nuclear industry has effectively been dead.
Even just a basic common sense threshold would make nuclear more viable overnight.
After reading through all press releases I still haven't seen any details on any money changing hands?
The previous ones from Google and Amazon at least specified that it was based on PPAs. Where all they did was bind themselves to buy X amount of power at Y cost if the company could deliver.
Taking a step back I have an incredibly hard time seeing how new built nuclear power will cope with renewables fundamentally reshaping our grids.
We're seeing the unraveling of the grid monopoly infront of our eyes [1] and renewables are set to completely crash all "baseload" markets. [2] Likely forcing them to become stranded assets.
Curious how this new design addresses the biggest safety challenge of nuclear reactors (the issue that was the root cause of the Fukushima accident and an indirect cause of Chernobyl): how do we ensure that the nuclear core temperature remains controlled during exceptional events (e.g., earthquakes, structural failures) when the reactor must shut down abruptly?
This is to appease the current US administration running the federal government that for some odd reasons is abhorrent to the idea of using cheap, cleaner renewable energy and battery storage to decarbonize our air and grid.
This is a purely political move. It will take a decade or longer if ever to ever get power from this. And yes it says "as early as 2032" but we know how that goes.
Why nuclear? Because it's cleaner than fossil fuelds but appeases the administration because it isn't wind or solar, which would immediately solve any power generation problems.
You might be tempted to say, since this always comes up, "what about base load?"
FFirst, batteries can solve that problem.
Second, you use a mix of power and when the Sun isn't out (ie night) is when power is cheaper from other sources.
Third, data centers don't really need base power at all. You just run the DC when you have power and don't when you don't. There's precedent for this. Google has a DC in Scandanavia that they shut down a few days a year when it gets too hot, otherwise it's just cooled by ocean water.
What I find most funny about all this is that all these big tech companies are kowtowing to the state in the exact same way they accuse Chinese companies of doing.
I am pro-nuclear power, but I miss the days when companies would, you know, return their profits to investors, so those investors could then invest in other companies doing different things, instead of all corporations tending towards generic everything-investment vehicles.
Meta (seemingly) bought the local race track in Beaver PA for a large data center. We were sad to see a world class racing facility go away as it finally started to hit its stride. But the offer was too hard for ownership to pass up
I won’t take Meta’s new ambitions serious unless Zuckerberg does something like have a “fireside chat” next to Ezra Klein moderated by Kara Swisher where he awkwardly spams the word “abundance” while staring Klein square in the brow. And then buys Vox Media.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 58.3 ms ] threadNow we see more demand and the building of the grid to meet that demand....yet the high cost is still remaining the same.
But Meta can be sued for so much more ...
Meta's nuclear intention is a perfect example of how tech is willing to pay far more for energy than other customers, and how it's driving up everybody's costs because we are all paying for that increase at elevated prices.
Nuclear is extremely expensive, higher than geothermal, renewables backed by storage, and natural gas. Nuclear is good for virtue signaling in some communities, but from the technological and economical perspectives, nuclear is very undesirable and unattractive. It's only social factors that keep alive the idea of new nuclear in advanced Western economies, not hard nosed analysis.
Here's a new preprint from Germans showing that even for Europe, a continent with very poor solar resources for many countries, new baseload is not the most economical route:
https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-physical-science/fulltext/...
You'll be waiting a while as the subsurface siting is highly specific. These would be unicorn projects.
Datacenters are trying to just pull geothermal electrons from same geographic grid, at best.
Even just a basic common sense threshold would make nuclear more viable overnight.
The previous ones from Google and Amazon at least specified that it was based on PPAs. Where all they did was bind themselves to buy X amount of power at Y cost if the company could deliver.
Taking a step back I have an incredibly hard time seeing how new built nuclear power will cope with renewables fundamentally reshaping our grids.
We're seeing the unraveling of the grid monopoly infront of our eyes [1] and renewables are set to completely crash all "baseload" markets. [2] Likely forcing them to become stranded assets.
[1]: https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Quiet-Unravel...
[2]: https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Wha...
Why nuclear? Because it's cleaner than fossil fuelds but appeases the administration because it isn't wind or solar, which would immediately solve any power generation problems.
You might be tempted to say, since this always comes up, "what about base load?"
FFirst, batteries can solve that problem.
Second, you use a mix of power and when the Sun isn't out (ie night) is when power is cheaper from other sources.
Third, data centers don't really need base power at all. You just run the DC when you have power and don't when you don't. There's precedent for this. Google has a DC in Scandanavia that they shut down a few days a year when it gets too hot, otherwise it's just cooled by ocean water.
What I find most funny about all this is that all these big tech companies are kowtowing to the state in the exact same way they accuse Chinese companies of doing.