This isn’t a moonshot at all. Checkout these eVinci microcreactors by Westinghouse. They’re currently being deployed in industrial settings around the country. They’re modular too so you just add more to scale. Pretty wild.
Comment on Why data centers want to have their own nuclear reactors
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Yeah I call bullshit on that. I get why they’re investing money in it, but this is a moonshot and I’m sure they don’t expect it to succeed.
These data centers can be built almost anywhere in the world. And there are places with very predictable weather patterns making solar/wind/hydro/etc extremely cheap compared to nuclear.
Nuclear power is so expensive, that it makes far more sense to build an entire solar farm and an entire wind farm, both capable of providing enough power to run the data center on their own in overcast conditions or moderate wind.
If you pick a good location, that’s lkely to work out to running off your own power 95% of the time and selling power to the grid something like 75% of the time. The 5% when you can’t run off your own power… you’d just draw power from the grid. Power produced by other data centers that have excess solar or wind power right now.
In the extremely rare disruption where power wouldn’t be available even from the grid… then you just shift your workload to another continent.
treadful@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Utah made a big splash about that as part of a climate change based election campaign.
They got real quite about a year later… and the website for the project is now a domain-for-sale page. The stated reason was what I said, it’s just too expensive.
IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They’re currently being deployed in industrial settings around the US.
I searched and I can’t find any cases of such a reactor being deployed anywhere in the US.
“Microreactors for civilian use are currently in the earliest stages of development, with individual designs ranging in various stages of maturity.”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_microreactor
The reactor you’re referring to doesn’t even had a Wikipedia page.
Weird.
treadful@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I first learned about it with this project in Butte, Montana, which is in development. They also have a page describing a deployment in Saskatchewan. I don’t know if this was completed yet but it’s been in progress for years. There’s also a lot of other planned deployments I’m finding.
I thought I saw some active deployment on the east coast last time I looked into this but haven’t been able to immediately find an example. Either way, it’s at least in progress, has regulatory backing, and is not just imaginary.
IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I’d say it’s imaginary if they don’t exist. Your claim that, “They’re currently being deployed in industrial settings around the US.” isn’t really accurate, is it?
asbestos@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Hey, is Signal down? Ah, reactor exploded, destroying the datacenter along with the staff on prem
Jk, cool stuff
simplejack@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
IMHO, data centers kind of need to be somewhat close to important population areas in order to ensure low latency.
You need a spot with attainable land, room to scale, close proximity to users, and decent infrastructure for power / connectivity. You can’t actually plop something out in the middle of BFE.
empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
The number of data centers in Prineville/Hermiston/Umatilla, OR beg to differ
While latnecy matters sometimes, there’s still a lot of data center services that care a lot less and can be put anywhere.
simplejack@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
One of those cities is pretty close to Redmond. The other 2 are 2-3 hours away from a major population center. The San Francisco equivalent would be data centers in Sacramento. Not exactly next door, but close enough to ensure that latency isn’t terrible for loading an e-commerce site or something.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I remember reading a story about an email server that was limited to sending emails within 150 miles. Through a lot of digging, they found it was due to an auto-timeout timer getting reset to 0ms. Anything further than 150 miles would cause a 1ms delay and thus get rejected for taking too long.
baru@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In case anyone wants to read that: www.ibiblio.org/harris/500milemail.html
abhibeckert@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
They really don’t. I live in regional Australia - the nearest data center is 1300 miles away. It’s perfectly fine.
Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
The earth has a circumference of 25,000 miles, and the speed of light in a fiber cable is 124,000 miles per second, so going the whole way around the earth would take .2 seconds(assuming you could send a signal that far).
simplejack@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Sure, but infrastructure is not just fiber, and there is a lot of stuff in between your long stretches of fiber.
I’m not a sys ops guy, but I can pull from different data centers and see measurable differences
This is a pretty well known phenomenon. That’s why we have cloud data centers located close to major metro areas.
douglasg14b@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
That’s… Not how internet infrastructure works.
And cables are not in straight lines between you and the destination.
Cocodapuf@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
For the majority of applications you need data centers for, latency just doesn’t matter. Bandwidth, storage space, and energy costs for example are all generally far more important.