Data centers need to bring their own power.
Texas Needs Equivalent of 30 Reactors to Meet Data Center Power Demand
Submitted 1 month ago by misk@sopuli.xyz to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
Amoxtli@thelemmy.club 1 month ago
paraphrand@lemmy.world 1 month ago
In a well regulated way that includes oversight, yes.
Botzo@lemmy.world 1 month ago
To a significant extent, they do, contracting for construction of generation and transmission (very often renewable), at least at the largest scale.
But, it’s (mostly) all on the grid.
With demand like that, it’s not like there isn’t significant negotiation with the local power company, especially because they’re frequently built a significant distance from existing large power infrastructure.
Heck, all the big 3 cloud providers signed deals for nuclear generation in the last few months. spectrum.ieee.org/nuclear-powered-data-center
Here’s just one more article about these sorts of investments: canarymedia.com/…/google-has-a-20b-plan-to-build-…
nothingcorporate@lemmy.today 1 month ago
The one state that refuses to connect to the interstate power grid and has Uber-like surge pricing on electricity? Yeah, I’m sure this won’t result in regular people footing the bill for more billionaire profits.
Texas is a joke, but not a good one.
Amoxtli@thelemmy.club 1 month ago
Texas pays 11 dollars per kilowatt hour. Far lower than left wing states and has a manufacturering base.
nothingcorporate@lemmy.today 1 month ago
Every Texan I know has a generator to deal with the unreliability of the grid, and there’s never been an article about someone in Iowa getting a surprise $100k electric bill…and the average wage in Texas is substantially lower than in “left wing” states like California or Washington…so not sure you’re making an apples-to-apples comparison, but time will be the judge, we can all check-in in a year and see how this plays out. Does Lemmy have a remind me! bot?
JustZ@lemmy.world 1 month ago
"In order to protect uptime of our glorious data centers, neighborhoods will begin experiencing rolling brownouts to reduce demand."
- Texas soon probably.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 month ago
One of the windiest, sunniest, emptiest places on earth and they want to waste water building reactors instead of renewables.
Hell, the geology means you can store energy in the ground using pressurized air.
wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
What? I’ve grown up around people in the nuclear industry, and nothing I’ve ever learned about the function “wastes” water.
Some rambling on how I understand water to be used by reactors
You’ve got some amount of water in the “dirty loop” exposed to the fissile material, and in the spent fuel storage tanks. Contaminated water is stuck for that use, but that isn’t “spending” the water. The water stays contained in those systems. They don’t magically delete water volume and need to be refilled. Outside of that you have your clean loop, which is bog standard “use heat to make steam, steam move turbine, moving turbine make electiricity, steam cools back to water”. Again, there’s no part of that which somehow makes the water not exist, or not be usable for other purposes.
Not saying you’re wrong. Renewables are absolutely preferable, and Texas is prime real estate to maximize their effectiveness. I’m just hung up on the “waste water building reactors” part.
Guessing it was some sort of research about the building process maybe, that I’ve just missed?
BussyCat@lemmy.world 1 month ago
How do you condense the steam back to water?
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Building them doesn’t waste water, running them does. In a place with a lot of water they make sense but any industrial water usage in a place with limited water supplies - when there are lower usage alternatives - seems wasteful
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
First 0 nuclear reactors will be built anywhere in US before 2035.
Texas is actually a renewables leader because, believe it or not, it has the least corrupt grid/utility sector, and renewables are the best market solution.
Even with 24/7 datacenter needs, near site solar + 4 hour batteries is quicker to build than fossil fuel plants and long transmission, and it also allows an eventual small grid connection to both provide overnight resilience from low transmission utilization fossil fuel as peakers anywhere in the state as well as export clean energy on sunnier days.
Market solutions, despite hostile governments, can reduce fossil fuel electricity even with massive demand surge. One of the more important market effects is that reliance of mass fossil fuel electricity expansion and expensive long high capacity transmission, would ensure a high captive cost at high fuel costs because of mass use, in addtion to extorting all regular electricity consumers. Solar locks in costs forever, including potentially reducing normal consumer electricity costs.
cibco@lemmy.world 1 month ago
“The least corrupt/utility sector” I must be thinking of the wrong Texas, which one are you referring too?
throwback3090@lemmy.nz 1 month ago
I think they mean “the same forces that led to the grid collapsing every few years – prioritizing profit above all else, and the government giving zero fucks-- are the same forces which trigger new development to be in renewables with zero regulation or oversight”
Conservatives always write about their broken-clock-right-twice successes in a similar way.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Compared to California, where everything is done to increase customer rates, or most other states where long wait lines to connect power occur, you can measure effective corruption by how much energy additions are made, including home solar. You can be critical of their exposure to power system failures, but that doesn’t make the system corrupt.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
near site solar + 4 hour batteries is quicker to build
But is it quicker at scale? Can solar and battery production keep up with expanding demand? Can it continue to do so over 10+ years? Can it outpace demand and start replacing fossil fuels?
Usually the proper solution is a mix of technologies. It shouldn’t be solar vs nuclear vs wind, but a mixture.
Nuclear does a great job at providing a large amount of energy consistently. It’s really bad at fluctuations in demand, and it’s also really bad at quick rollout. I think it makes a lot of sense to build nuclear in Texas over the long term because it can start filling in demand as efficiency of older panels and batteries drop off, which extends the useful life of those installations and reduces reliance on battery backups.
I also think hydrogen is an interesting option as well, since it’s sort of an alternative to batteries, which can be hard to get at scale. Use excess generation for electrolysis and use those for mobile energy use (e.g. trucks, forklifts, etc) or electricity generation. It’s also not ideal, but it could make sense as part of a broader grid setup.
Solar is awesome and we need more of it. I just want to encourage consideration of other options so we can attack energy production from multiple angles.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Can solar and battery production keep up with expanding demand?
China is expanding so fast that they are accused of overproducing, and so supply capacity is not only there, it can increase further.
Usually the proper solution is a mix of technologies. It shouldn’t be solar vs nuclear vs wind, but a mixture.
The main benefit of wind is in battery reduction. A capacity equal to lowest night demand. Wind often produces longer hours than solar per day. The predictability of solar allows clear power forecasts, and then enough solar for needs with a small grid connection allowing both monetizing surpluses, and having resilience in shortfalls. Nuclear has no economic or climate roles, for being both too expensive and of too long a delay.
I also think hydrogen is an interesting option as well, since it’s sort of an alternative to batteries,
Hydrogen is the solution for having unlimited renewables and being able to monetize all of their surpluses. It is a bonus to be able to provide emergency/peak power, including renting a vehicle to have bonus value of powering a building. For today, backup fossil fuel generators can still provide resilience value to solar.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 month ago
How many do they need in the winter, tho?
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Yeah, build that many minus 10-20%, and fill in the rest with solar, wind, etc. That way you get a good mix of base level production and burst demand.
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 1 month ago
Hmm harness the holy light of the sun?
not_that_guy05@lemmy.world 1 month ago
But what about all that holy black ooze?
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 1 month ago
But what about all that unholy black ooze?
Demon blood made of 666 particles
SkybreakerEngineer@lemmy.world 1 month ago
So, exactly one uranium patch with a mk 3 miner stuffed full of slugs? Not including waste reprocessing or alternative recipes?
Botzo@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Seems satisfactory to me.
MyOpinion@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Sounds like Texas will be a nuclear waste dump soon.
ProfessorProteus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Please! It would be such a nice improvement!
I want to get out of here :(
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Well, Texas certainly has the space for it.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 1 month ago
So why is it the duty of our country to gather all electricity possible for the richest people to waste on burning out GPUs so they can lose money on free chatbots?
pdxfed@lemmy.world 1 month ago
For the same reason housing should be a speculative investment, and healthcare services available only to the highest bidder.