AI is another dot com style bubble. How about we all just be quiet about that so billionaires blow a lot of hype driven investment dollars on green energy?
Once the bubble bursts there will be a surplus of cheap green energy we can use for powering homes and EVs and such. Obviously there’s better ways to do this than scamming billionaires into a hype train, but global warming is a problem now and we can’t wait for our society to change to be able to address the problem in a rational way.
So… sure… AI is the future! We need to build a lot of wind and solar power so we can have AI! We don’t need this for woke global warming reasons, no no no. We need this for $$$$$$AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ reasons! Increase shareholder value by making wind turbine and solar panels, you must do this because it’s illegal not to maximize shareholder value!!! Build wind and solar so you can someday fire all of your employees! For the shareholders!
A lot of the companies and people responsible for having all these datacenters built are heavily invested in SMR. So they’ll probably be used anyways.
For a modern scaled up data center, there’s no real benefit to nuclear miniturization. That’s the sort of technology best employed on shipping frigates and space stations - places where portability is a priority.
You don’t need to pick up a date center the size of 70 football fields and send it anywhere.
Shipping frigates? Sure, lets give the Houthis and Somali pirates the capability of building dirty bombs.
And if solar power is cheaper on Earth, think of how much more cheaper it is in space where there isn’t an atmosphere getting in the way.
Sometimes a tech is really cool, but there just isn’t any viable use case for it.
Sure, lets give the Houthis and Somali pirates the capability of building dirty bombs.
What are you talking about?
And if solar power is cheaper on Earth, think of how much more cheaper it is in space
There’s an R^2 drop off as you travel away from the sun.
have datacenters get their power only from renewables and limit the amount of area they have to build them and watch renewable efficiency skyrocket as they either have to develop them or have limited power.
Are you trying to trick tech companies into being useful? That’ll upset them.
Someone tell Silicon Valley: They should put datacenters on trains so no one knows where they are. gonna need HSR for it to work properly tho.
Making a data center profitable would be bad for the economy and the jobs
Renewable efficiency is close to the theoretical limit. Solar cell have a limit just over 33% and current models have efficiency of around 25%.
Renewable efficiency is close to the theoretical limit.
There’s still plenty of juice to squeeze in terms of cost to manufacturer, deploy, and maintain. This isn’t purely a question of cell efficiency.
if the component is at its limit, then you can come up with ways to use that component more efficiently. Also reducing the size of the whole thing also increases efficiency singe you can stuff more of them in same area
Tha area is given by the suns light. The sun gives us around 1000w per m2. The theoretical limit is 330w converted to electrical power. Current panels achieve 250w.
This is not a GPU, making things smaller doesn’t give you any gains.
it doesnt have to be just solar power gained from solarcells, there could be all kinds of novel solutions to get more out of what can be harnessed. Things could be combined to get better results or they could be used for unconventional things to get something new.
But such innovation doesnt happen unless there is need for it, and companies dont see renewable energy as big priority as rest of us, otherwise there would be crazy competition for who invents better stuff and still using fossil fuels would get you laughed at. Only way to create such need is to force companies into it by threatening profits more directly, as looming eco collapse doesnt seem to concern them since its oh so many quarters away.
Which is why I always laugh when people say to replace a 15 year old fridge to “save” on electricity. Why? It’s as cheap as the wind, making and shipping a new fridge isn’t.
Which is why I always laugh when people say to replace a 15 year old fridge to “save” on electricity.
Really depends on how much your electricity costs relative to your efficiency gain on the new fridge.
But refrigerators are also largely a “solved” technology. We aren’t radicallu changing how we run a compressor or insulate a unit. I ended up getting a new one recently because my old refrigerator’s repair bill was going to be as much as a new unit.
Now, if units were more modular and easier/cheaper to repair? The math changes.
“I’m going to spend $1500 so I can save $8/month.”
… For quite a few years and it pays itself back in 15/16 years, after which it probably still works for another 5 to 10 years.
Unless of course the manufacturer hamstrings it well before that time.
See: Samsung
Of course. Renewable blows nuclear out of orbit when it comes to price. Nuclear plants take decades to build and are generally a lot more expensive than estimated.
The Vogtle scam’s end cost was $17/watt. $8B or $4/watt was just financing costs prior to eventual operation that Georgia Power got to charge its customers for its share, over the 20 years before it gave them power from the boondoggle.
Solar costs under $1/watt to deploy, and batteries in a container (can fit under solar) costs $1 per 10 watt-hours of storage. Both last over 30 years.
SMR’s can pretend lower capital costs per watt, when excluding design/prototype time, but trade much more expensive enriched (proliferation risk) fuel that is less efficient, needs breeder reactors to provide likely from Russia, and carries higher security costs per watt. SMRs are simply a new scam to defraud investors with because nuclear is worthless as energy, and only ever is for military applications.
SMR’s can pretend lower capital costs per watt, when excluding design/prototype time, but trade much more expensive enriched (proliferation risk) fuel that is less efficient
The primary appeal of SMRs is their portability. Pointless for a data center, but vital for a large vehicle like a cruise liner or a shipping frigate.
Replacing our fleet of bunker fuel powered ships would be enormously beneficial.
The primary appeal of SMRs is their portability
There are micro/nano nuclear designs meant to fit in a truck trailer. They are under 1mw power, and not meant to be affordable for those who need more power than that. They are not space efficient to power ships. They may never be made, and just investor scams.
As for shipping, civilian use would be nightmare. Virginia class nuclear subs cost $2.7B. 5x more 2.2B more than best diesel submarines and have operational costs that are 4x higher than diesel subs. Wind power is path to decarbonizing shipping. That chinese airborne blimp windmill posted recently would work.
That’s mostly because the west has become a bad place to build things, bike-shedding and a general loss of nuclear building expertise lost due to successful campaigning against nuclear by the fossil fuel industry.
We could be scaling up nuclear right now to help the goals for 2050 to be reached and then coast for a while as renewables pickup pace and fusion is finally cracked.
But no only thing people care about is immediate cost.
Yes renewables are cheaper per kw at the moment but they are also putting a lot of strain on the grid that’s not accounted for that’s expensive to upgrade, they are also not scaling up fast enough, which means there will be added cost to climate change.
Vs we could build nuclear reactors at a loss and bring on serious gigawatts of clean energy in a decade that would provide a stable baseline.
Its wonderful how they just drop the “20% is gas” part from that headline. Yes, burning gas is cheap, but it is also aweful for the environment and shouldn’t be getting considered at all… 20% of a fuck ton of power is still a shitload of power. I think that’s how those units work anyway.
They undersell the benefits of renewables significantly overall. This is for UK which they come out with slightly lower costs for omitting solar. They also say 5 years to build a 120mw microgrid. 1 post driller, 1 crane for support posts, with 2 workers guiding post insertion and cleaning up, 1 “wall of panels” crane lifter, with 3 workers aligning connecting panels on the ground, and then connecting wall to posts can get 40kw/hour=320kw/day. Complete in little over a year. But, in solar, 9 crews can really make a baby in 1 month.
Microgrids don’t need permits, and utilities will give them an import connection.
Fracking methane should be excluded. It’s 80 times worse for the environment than even CO2.
where does it say 20%
That was an extrapolation from where they said renewables would cover 80% in the article. I can only assume the mentioned gas would be the other 20%
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thanks, that doesn’t have anything to do with the concern mentioned you replied to tho
What does that have to do with the topic being discussed?
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It’s pathetic propaganda. You know what’s even cheaper? Coal! Or just going 100% gas! So if it’s really about cost then the answer is zero renewables.
Onshore wind is the cheapest electricity in the UK, by far. It’s not even close.
NG newbuild in UK is not cheaper than wind. Unless NG is extremely cheap due to no one using it anymore, and there are abundant supply options.
Coal is more expensive, it’s not the 90’s anymore.
a commenter:
They claim to compare the cost of powering a 120MW data centre from a dedicated 470MW RR SMR compared to powering it from an 80MW gas turbine plus some unspecified number of wind, solar, and battery installations. For a study supposedly promoting wind, solar and battery technology, you would think they would tell us how many, what size, and what model of wind turbines they are modelling. But no, that’s left to vague hand waving.
on review this doesn’t appear to be entirely true; see my other comment: https://lemmy.world/post/36518843/19617823. still no specification behind the 43.4% stat, tho
Get out of here with your facts, reason and logic it’s not allowed. Don’t you understand we have to turn off all the deadly evil nuclear plants and stop them from poisoning the Earth and killing so many more people than all other methods of power combined /s
Fun fact, wind energy kills more people per year than nuclear has in decades.
where was i anti-nuclear
You weren’t but give it enough time and they will show up so I like to head them off
well why sabotage your own visibility by replying to my unrelated comment lol
I’m literally hitching a ride on the top comment lol
i’m far from the top comment
Wind and solar ᵃⁿᵈ ᵍᵃˢ
problem is solar and wind are variable and not feasible everywhere. for places like australia solar is amazing. Winter in canada? not so much. So for a baseline you’d have to store a massive amount of energy in some way.
if you plan on batteries that requires lots of precious metals we will need elsewhere to aid in the transition to electric power.
problem is solar and wind are variable and not feasible everywhere.
Offshore wind is constant.
if you plan on batteries that requires lots of precious metals we will need elsewhere to aid in the transition to electric power.
Umm, what about sodium-ion that are now getting put into production?
Hydro energy to the rescue.
the studied location is the UK
The UK has one of the largest wind farms in the world, I think it actually is the largest in the world. One of the wind farms was built just off the coast of Scotland right next to trump’s golf course and I’m sure it was built mostly just to annoy him.
Solar however is a lot less reliable, just because it’s not particularly sunny here and also with it being so far north during the winter the nights are quite long.
The government says that the intention is to go 100% renewable but what they actually mean is as much renewable as possible, plus nuclear cover the load. No one thinks you can 100% be on solar and wind.
Actual paper (not calling this a study since this appears to be non–peer-reviewed and only self-published): https://microgridai.centrefornetzero.org/ Be advised that this website relies on some Chromium-only trickery.
renewable microgrids […] compared to nuclear small modular reactors
A 95% renewable microgrid with 5% gas backup - in line with the UK’s Clean Power 2030 target - was modelled at almost a third (31.7%) lower cost than scenario 1 in today’s prices. In this model, the gas is restricted to just under 80MW (2/3rds the size of the data centre) and the model correspondingly chooses a larger battery for storage, and increases the size of wind and solar technologies.
I’m confused; how does 5% equal 2/3 the size of the data center modeled?
(Edit: Someone else suggested this: “I think the gas can supply 2/3 of the power that the data centre requires for situations when there is no sun or wind but only makes up 5% of the total energy used over a year.”)
They include a link to the model: https://github.com/ryanjenkinson/data-centre-modelling
Extreme incompetence in modeling. the github is complete crap. otoh their angelfire site does actually list some costs for the SMR.
They make the SMR side look absurdly cheap. $55/mwh power costs with 30c/watt capital costs is just absurdly low. Conservative SMR power estimates start at $180/mwh, and so actual microgrid costs would be over 80% lower.
More incompetence has their microgrid using off shore wind which is just stupid for HVDC requirement for small scale. Automatically too incompetent to trust their modeling. They don’t specify cost assumptions for any of the microgrid components.
wdym the github is complete crap? it has everything you mentioned you wanted to look at. and wouldn’t a too-low estimate for nuclear costs give extra validity to the claim that microgrids are much cheaper?
what is .nc file format? their csv data has no cost numbers.
wouldn’t a too-low estimate for nuclear costs give extra validity to the claim that microgrids are much cheaper?
It is much cheaper. Everywhere. But the modeling done in this instance can still be completely incompetent.
is this not cost? https://github.com/ryanjenkinson/data-centre-modelling/blob/main/notebooks/costs_2020.csv
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36360469/read-nc-netcdf-files-using-python. and regardless, is a single file you don’t understand that is clearly read by the notebooks as input solar data enough for you to evaluate competence‽
https://github.com/ryanjenkinson/data-centre-modelling/blob/main/notebooks/model.ipynb does give model details, but doesn’t use that cost file directly.
some mistakes…
inflates 2021 costs to 2025 for all technologies. Solar has depreciated, and wind maybe did not go up in price. A bigger deal is no distribution costs. Offshore tall AF wind turbines are cheapest power in the world, if you build an island/raft at the bottom of the turbine to drink the power, and that is only scenario where they are part of a microgrid. They cost much higher than solar due to HVDC lines, and transformers to use “normal” current. Current conversion equipment in general also not included.
The gas costs overall are very low. Ridiculously low is fixed opex 1/4 that of wind. insurance about the same as solar, when people can get burned or poisoned “easily”, and mile wide craters have occurred at gas plants. No fuel delivery markups on futures prices, or infrastructure costs to deliver it. If it’s going to be 5%-20% capacity factor, delivery by truck is no infrastructure, but high fuel costs. Fuel delivery/handling for low capacity use makes coal look better. Fixed opex requires people operating 24 hours and emergency shutoff standy people.
Battery modeling is bad. Model uses constraint/linear programming to find a mix, but battery range is capped at 600mwh, with wind and solar at 2000mw, and so can fill battery in 20 minutes. Claim that at 600mwh, you only need gas for 5% of power, makes a gas plant a complete absurdity relative to a utility grid connection. A good battery size is 2 times the maximum charge rate.
SMR modeling is extreme joke. Based on 540mw reactor which simply is not even SMR. Normal big reactors are 1gw. They save substantial costs by having 4 to 8 on a site. The $55/mwh ($80 in 2025) figure from earlier is just variable/fuel costs. $5/watt construction costs not serious. no reason to ever expect under $15/watt. Neither of the numbers scale down to 120mw either, and nuclear is simply not a 24/7/365 capable energy source, even if you want your datacenter to be. If you need 12 hour maintenance windows, you need 1440mwh of battery systems that you will hardly every use. Nuclear was always stupid to consider, and a grid connection with possible exporting generation assets on site is the way to go.
Capacity factors for wind of 0.61 is high due to invalid offshore use. With 1400mw wind, and over 800mw wind per hour, a 120mw datacenter is horribly mismatched. Solar of 0.11 is 2.5 hours/day production. It’s a reason to have datacenter outside of UK, but onshore/onsite wind+solar can work for the right UK site. Solar for “off grid” in north should go for lower total capacity factor by maximizing tilt for winter production. Easy to get a full day’s power 9 months of the year, and find way to monetize surpluses. Grid exchange for datacenter application, smart. For datacenters, all electronics run on DC, which means they can all run off batteries, and everything else charges batteries.
The starting point with behind the meter renewable power with bidirectional grid connection is production required for maximum use + export on a 120mw transmission line per day = 5800mwh. 2600mwh battery to discharge up to 120mw all day is also 24 hours of operation power. Summer solar in UK will reach 8 hour days, and many 7 hour days. Onshore Wind averages 6 hours, but can hit 20 hours in a day. Model is $1.5m/mw wind, and $500k/mw solar (excluding grid connections) at capacity factors favours more solar. Natural DC power also favours solar. Wind has less land footprint, and could benefit from being on the north side, with (idk) solar panels helping rare south winds funnel up to the blades. The winter capacity factors are much higher for wind, and worth more than 3x the cost in winter. Other factors is export value of our electricity. A renewable future means higher night prices, and even in UK, higher winter prices. 24 hour huge battery means profit from day 2, 3 day ahead forecasts arbitrage.
The right model is 7 hours solar + 6 hours wind = 5800mwh (summer peak). and 6 hours wind + 1 hour solar = 1300mwh which is hoping for 50% self generation in bad solar winter days, but average wind. 200mw of wind and 650mw of solar at winter optimized angle gives 1850mwh on bad solar average wind winter day, and the 5800mwh summer maximum on mnay days with some curtailment possibility. up front power costs are $390m batteries, $325m solar, $350m wind = $1.065B. Over 1twh non curtailed self production per year. For 10% ROI on power production (nevermind datacenter companies having 5% cost of capital), $100/mwh is both export revenue needed and cost of internal power (which if you only needed 5% ROI/or financing burden is $50/mwh). This is lower internal costs than grid or just variable SMR power costs, and can often undercut competing supply for even higher profit. This is same annual production as 120mw 24/7 SMR, but that has $1.8B+ capital costs, and $180/mwh breakeven energy value (before the extreme variable/fixed operating costs). A 120mw fossil plant does mean just $30/mwh capital cost retrieval, but the operational costs are at least $60/mwh. OP Model underscores these heavily. The renewables approach achieves lower internal power costs + big profit opportunity from electricity trade. The variable costs of fossil fuel plants means they can’t just run 24/7 into a market price that loses them money, and so it only makes sense for datacenter to not share fossil power with rest of society.
thanks for the detailed analysis!
i’m curious though, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_modular_reactor#List_of_reactor_designs says the design with the largest output is just 940 MWe and the second-largest output 600 MWe, are you sure they should be at least 1 GWe or am i reading something wrong?
Without having read it myself, perhaps they mean 5% of total usage. So the gas generation is built to be able to handle 2/3rds of the power demand, in case of outage as a backup, but in normal operation will only contribute 5% of the energy demand. That way, in the event of a failure of the renewable energy source for whatever reason, or a failure in the batteries, the gas can kick in and keep the servers online while cutting disposal operations that represent 1/3 of the total.
interesting, never heard this before
The “analysis” was done by “Centre for Net Zero”………definitely not biased at all…….lol
Offshore wind is one of the most environmentally destructive methods of power generation.
Also this is saying that they are making their own small power grid purely to power the data center - why? A nuclear plant would power this + half the country as well. Making nuclear plant just to power this, with it making 5x the power needed, is not how it would work.
Offshore wind is one of the most environmentally destructive methods of power generation.
Interesting claim (as compared with coal mining and its fly-ash ponds, Canadian tar sands, hundreds of bankrupt and leaking well sites in New Mexico and the Gulf of America, rivers stripped by nuclear heat waste, etc). What exactly does most mean?
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“net zero” just means you don’t elect for the far more environmentally destructive method of burning fossil fuels
also, it seems the jury’s still out on offshore turbines’ environmental impact. some say it creates artificial reefs while some say its tons of noise disrupt marine life
Net zero organisations have shown a clear agenda against nuclear, which is ironic considering it’s the cleanest and most reliable power generation method, as well as taking up the smallest footprint with the least environmental disruption. “Net zero” in reality means “renewables” only.
Offshore turbines require insane amounts of concrete, steel, oil, and non renewable non recyclable materials not just to make, but to maintain. There’s also no doubt about them altering the ecosystems around them, and not for the better. They also aren’t even a viable option in most countries.
Nuclear power requires a lot of water for coolant. Usually they use river water and release the heated water back in the river, which quite heavily disrupts the ecosystem.
Additionally, during heatwaves (which we’re getting more and more of) the river water may get too warm to use, so the reactor has to shut down (happens in France almost every heatwave), which is bad as that happens when power usage tends to spike.
Nuclear is also extremely expensive, costs many years to build, not to mention we don’t have enough educated nuclear engineers nor build capacity to keep up with the demand for new power. It’s why investors generally don’t bother with nuclear much, outside of specific niche cases. Not to mention the carbon footprint of building a power plant.
It’s also likely going to get more expensive to run in the future. As renewables keep contributing more power to the grid (since they’re so cheap and getting cheaper still), power generation will also fluctuate more. Meaning, other power sources need to be very flexible in when they output power themselves. Nuclear is famously quite inflexible, it takes time to spin up and wind down. There are reactor designs that are better at it, but even for those shutting down the reactor for a couple hours tends to be economic suicide as well. This exact reason btw is why gas is still used a lot; it’s cleaner than coal at least, but also very easy to spin up or wind down without creating much extra cost. And it’s much cheaper than nuclear (leaving more money to invest in renewables).
Nuclear could be great, if it was A) cheaper, B) faster to build and C) more flexible. And no, so far SMRs have not proven to be any of those things yet.
generally agree but tech firms are looking into small modular reactors sized for datacenters.
I’ve heard this as well, but in doing this they would either make a significantly smaller and cheaper one that isn’t outputting 5x the power required, or they’d do a deal with the local councils/government to provide lower for them as well.
This “study” is comparing the cost of 80 units of power generation for “renewables” to over 400 units for nuclear. Is just yet another dishonest agenda driven “study” for the anti-nuclear groups.
Nuclear is the most expensive with long term waste, and is an existential threat.
As if we could trust industry and the government right now, ha.
We already have 4 reactors on active fault lines, others in storm surge areas of ocean, increasingly severe storms. A meltdown is when not if, as is improper disposal of waste and the ones making it sticking society with it’s cost.
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I know I’m right when your only reply is insults.
