[HN Gopher] Amazon buys stake in nuclear energy developer in pus...
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Amazon buys stake in nuclear energy developer in push to power data
centres
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 116 points
Date : 2024-10-16 13:32 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ft.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ft.com)
| atomic128 wrote:
| At today's live event (to accompany the news) Amazon Web Services
| (AWS) announced plans for 5 gigawatts of small modular nuclear
| reactors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hFBKIt_YfI
|
| Let's begin with a quote from Yann LeCun (Vice-President, Chief
| AI Scientist at Meta): AI datacenters will be
| built next to energy production sites that can produce
| gigawatt-scale, low-cost, low-emission electricity continuously.
| Basically, next to nuclear power plants. The advantage
| is that there is no need for expensive and wasteful long-
| distance distribution infrastructure. Note: Yes, solar
| and wind are nice and all, but they require lots of land
| and massive-scale energy storage systems for when there is too
| little sun and/or wind. Neither simple nor cheap.
|
| https://x.com/ylecun/status/1837875035270263014
|
| No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an arbitrarily
| extended period of bad weather. If you have battery backup
| sufficient for time T and the weather doesn't cooperate for time
| T+1, you're in trouble.
|
| Even a day or two of battery backup eliminates the cost advantage
| of solar/wind. Battery backup postpones the "range anxiety
| deadline" but cannot remove it. Fundamentally, solar and wind are
| not baseload power solutions. They are intermittent and
| unreliable.
|
| Nuclear fission is the only clean baseload power source that can
| be widely adopted (cf. hydro). After 70 years of working with
| fission reactors, we know how to build and operate them at 95%+
| efficiency (https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-
| capacity). Vogtle 3 and 4 have been operating at 100%.
|
| Today there are 440 nuclear reactors operating in 32 countries.
|
| Nuclear fission power plants are expensive to build but once
| built the plant can last 50 years (probably 80 years, maybe
| more). The unenriched uranium fuel is very cheap
| (https://www.cameco.com/invest/markets/uranium-price), perhaps 5%
| of the cost of running the plant.
|
| This is in stark contrast to natural gas, where the plant is less
| expensive to build, but then fuel costs rapidly accumulate. The
| fossil fuel is the dominant cost of running the plant. And
| natural gas is a poor choice if greenhouse emissions matter.
|
| Google is funding construction of 7 nuclear reactors. Microsoft
| is paying $100/MWh for 20 years to restart an 819 MW reactor at
| Three Mile Island. Sam Altman owns a stake in Oklo, a small
| modular reactor company. Bill Gates owns a stake in his
| TerraPower nuclear reactor company. Amazon recently purchased a
| "nuclear adjacent" data center from Talen Energy. Oracle
| announced that it is designing data centers with small modular
| nuclear reactors.
|
| In China, 5 reactors are being built every year. 11 more were
| recently announced. The United Arab Emirates (land of oil and
| sun) now gets 25% of its grid power from the Barakah nuclear
| power plant (four 1.4 GW reactors, a total of 5.6 GW).
|
| Nuclear fission will play an important role in the future of grid
| energy, along with solar and wind. Many people (e.g., Germany)
| still fear it. Often these people are afraid of nuclear waste,
| despite it being extremely tiny and safely contained
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dry_cask_storage). Education will
| fix this.
|
| Nuclear fission is safe, clean, secure, and reliable.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| A nuclear power plant doesn't have 100% availability for an
| arbitrary length of time either.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| but usually availability for npp can be planned
| (maintenance/refueling) unlike say wind/solar output (not
| referring to day/night but hourly variations)
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Yes, but still not arbitrary length of time: weather can
| matter for cooling, there could be strike action, policy
| action, ...
| Moldoteck wrote:
| for weather - that's not a problem for newer designs that
| account for that. Even in France just a few nr of plants
| are affected and their output reduced
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Doesn't change that arbitrary length of availability
| isn't a thing.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Wind/solar output is surprisingly predictable 3 days out,
| and the modern grid can react to changes within seconds.
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| I'm as skeptical of nuclear as a person can get, but I think
| availability is significantly mitigated by the SMR concept
| IIUC. Yes, uptime is worse than people might think (nuclear
| plants are offline a LOT
| https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/outages/), but if you've got
| literally dozens of SMRs chained up, then hypothetically you
| can expect/handle some % being down at any one time.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Let's see how it works out when/if these things are
| actually running at scale.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Nobody claims 100% availability. Doesn't change that nuclear
| is by far the most reliable electricity generator. The US
| nuclear fleet has had capacity factors in the 95% range for
| ages now. And the 5% tend to be planned maintenance/fueling.
|
| Not only are the times of unavailablilty very rare and
| usually plannable, they are also uncorrelated. Seasons,
| day/night cycles and even large scale weather patterns are
| highly correlated.
| Retric wrote:
| Depends on the timeframe.
|
| Nuclear is among the least dependable generation sources
| from a long term capacity standpoint, with multiple
| incidents taking generation off for long periods. 3 mile
| island wasn't a big deal from a health and safety
| standpoint, but at 4 AM TMI-2 went offline with zero
| warning and never came back. Similarly you can't trust
| timelines for when exactly new generation will come online.
|
| Less severe incidents don't necessarily make the news, but
| losing 1.3 GW at some random period for weeks or months
| isn't particularly uncommon. Sure major incidents are
| "rare," but there's not actually that many nuclear power
| plants ever constructed.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Once it's built and operational? It can run near 100% for
| literally decades at 99.9% plus uptime, no solar source is
| going to do that because of physics where you can easily vary
| from 0% to 99% over a single day and have to smooth that out
| for the grid. Obviously you will need an extra reactor or 3
| for when you have to take one of the others offline for
| maintenance.
| leesec wrote:
| OK, let me know whenever you can build it.
|
| Anyways you could double the power of the country with solar on
| just roofs and parking lots, so consider that before you go in
| on your land argument.
|
| Solar and batteries will win
| myrmidon wrote:
| Vogtle capacity factor is at 91%. That won't do for a
| datacenter.
|
| This is exactly why highly energy intensive consumers are still
| connected to the grid, and NOT to individual power plants.
|
| In a grid with increasing proportion of renewable energy
| (wind/solar), it becomes less and less appealing to build
| nuclear plants because the amount of time that those plants are
| not competitive increases (=> whenever wind/sun is available).
|
| Even in China, basically the only country where nuclear power
| is being added at a non-negligible rate right now, nuclear
| output is being eclipsed by wind/solar already, and those are
| growing much faster, too: More wind power was _added_ in China
| since 2019 than the _total_ nuclear power right now (~400TWh
| /year), and absolutely no trend reversal is in sight.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| nuclear increased approvals for npp - 10+/yr with 30+ in
| construction. Not comparable to renewable scaling, but China
| certainly sees potential in nuclear
| janalsncm wrote:
| Not sure how much it factors in, but solar is at a political
| disadvantage since Chinese solar panels are artificially
| expensive.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Investing in nuclear power today is an insane prospect when the
| energy market is being reshaped at this speed.
|
| In Europe old paid off nuclear plants are regularly being
| forced off the markets due to supplying too expensive energy.
|
| This will only worsen the nuclear business case as renewable
| expansion continues, today being a bonanza fueled by finally
| finding an energy source cheaper than fossil fuels.
|
| Nuclear power is essentially pissing against the wind hoping
| the 1960s returns. It needs to come down by 85% in cost to be
| equal to a reliable renewable system.
|
| _> The study finds that investments in flexibility in the
| electricity supply are needed in both systems due to the
| constant production pattern of nuclear and the variability of
| renewable energy sources. However, the scenario with high
| nuclear implementation is 1.2 billion EUR more expensive
| annually compared to a scenario only based on renewables, with
| all systems completely balancing supply and demand across all
| energy sectors in every hour. For nuclear power to be cost
| competitive with renewables an investment cost of 1.55 MEUR /MW
| must be achieved, which is substantially below any cost
| projection for nuclear power._
|
| https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030626192...
|
| China finished 1 reactor in 2023 and are in track for a massive
| 3 finished reactors in 2024.
|
| On the other hand they are building enough renewables to cover
| their entire electricity growth.
|
| Even China has figured out that nuclear power is not
| economically viable.
|
| https://reneweconomy.com.au/chinas-quiet-energy-revolution-t...
|
| Every dollar invested in nuclear today prolongs our reliance on
| fossil fuels. We get enormously more value of the money simply
| by building renewables.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > Investing in nuclear power today is an insane prospect
|
| The Real World(tm) disagrees with your model. Time to update
| your model.
|
| > In Europe old paid off nuclear plants are regularly being
| forced off the markets due to supplying too expensive energy.
|
| No, nuclear power is being forced off markets by insane
| subsidy schemes that lead to grids being flooded with
| electricity at _negative_ (or just zero) prices, due to those
| producers being isolated from price signals by both (a)
| subsidised /guaranteed producer prices and (b) priority.
|
| We are paying "renewable" produces to produce electricity
| that nobody wants, then have to pay consumers to take it off
| our hands AND wreak havoc with our reliable producers. And
| then we congratulate ourselves on a job well done.
|
| > Nuclear power is essentially pissing against the wind
| hoping the 1960s returns
|
| Nuclear power plants are licensee to print money. Unless you
| forbid them to operate or flood the market with subsidizes
| competitors and give those competitors priority.
|
| > Even China has figured out that nuclear power is not
| economically viable.
|
| LOL. That's why they are accelerating their nuclear program.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-03-15/china-.
| ..
|
| _China's Nuclear Energy Expansion Is Getting Even Faster
|
| Beijing's rapid deployment of atomic power rivals its growth
| in solar and wind, and the round-the-clock electricity is
| more beneficial for the grid._
| Sakos wrote:
| A lot of ideologically-driven people here who are staunchly
| anti-nuclear no matter what. It's tiring.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _lot of ideologically-driven people here who are
| staunchly anti-nuclear no matter what. It 's tiring._
|
| As someone who is pro-nuclear, there are also a lot of
| pro-nuclear folks who are needlessly pessimistic on wind,
| solar and batteries.
| atomic128 wrote:
| Look at what Germany did to itself. How long will that
| damage take to repair?
|
| The anti-nuclear wind/solar proponents are dangerously
| wrong.
|
| We need to clearly explain why wind and solar are not
| enough, and why nuclear is complementary. We need to
| explain it so everyone can understand it.
|
| We must not allow what happened in Germany to happen
| elsewhere.
| Kon5ole wrote:
| I have the same feeling but opposite. Nuclear energy has
| never been profitable anywhere in the world to date, has
| entirely disproportionate downsides that have manifested
| repeatedly despite the most rigorous safety procedures
| found anywhere.
|
| The evidence for this is overwhelming and undeniable, yet
| some people here still seem to believe that nuclear is
| 'cheap and safe'.
|
| I truly don't understand how it's possible for rational
| humans to believe that.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > I have the same feeling but opposite.
|
| The problem is that this is just a feeling. The bigger
| problem is that this feeling is still extremely
| widespread, completely contrary to the facts. For
| example...
|
| > Nuclear energy has never been profitable anywhere in
| the world to date
|
| This is completely false. Nuclear energy is profitable
| pretty much everywhere it is used. Almost obscenely
| profitable, if you are allowed to run the plants.
|
| I ran the numbers for Hinkley Point C. At the rate they
| negotiated (14,8 Cents/kWh...or was it pence?) the
| profits are almost obscene.
|
| A modern EPR will generate 1040 TWh of electricity over
| its lifetime, assuming 80 years operation and 90%
| capacity factor. Assuming the EDF-negotiated price is
| 14,8 cents, that's a cool EUR 150 billion worth of
| electricity. But that's just one reactor, whereas HPC is
| two. So EUR 300 billion. Puts even the completely
| ridiculous cost overruns for those two reactors into
| perspective, doesn't it?
|
| China built their two EPRs for a total of $7.5 billion,
| and with the EPR2, EDF is pretty certain to get
| construction times and costs.
|
| Here's an explainer of the economics.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbeJIwF1pVY
|
| The annual reports for one of the Swiss plants are
| online. They produce electricity for 3-5 cents.
| Profitably. In Switzerland. And they have expenses
| like...oh...a new administrative building in one year.
| Switzerland is not cheap.
|
| > has entirely disproportionate downsides
|
| What are those "entirely disproportionate downsides", in
| your opinion? If you subtract the effects of radiophobia?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiophobia
|
| > The evidence for this is overwhelming and undeniable,
|
| Yes, the evidence _for_ nuclear is overwhelming und
| undeniable, yet some people go right ahead and deny it.
|
| > I truly don't understand how it's possible for rational
| humans to believe that.
|
| Agreed. I truly don't understand how it's possible for
| rational humans to believe that nuclear is unsafe and
| uneconomic.
| Krasnol wrote:
| > No battery farm can protect a solar/wind grid from an
| arbitrarily extended period of bad weather. If you have battery
| backup sufficient for time T and the weather doesn't cooperate
| for time T+1, you're in trouble.
|
| It's the grid which protects it and if the grid is broken
| nuclear is even worse since you're suddenly faced with far too
| much power on a small portion of the whole grid. Meanwhile with
| renewables, even if the grid is broken on several points, you
| are much better off due to the distribution of power
| generation.
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Google commits to buying power generated by nuclear-energy
| startup Kairos Power_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41840769
|
| _Three Mile Island nuclear plant restart in Microsoft AI power
| deal_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41601443
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| This is a _much_ more significant announcement. The above two
| deals are not significant commitments from Google & Amazon
| because there is no downside. If the plan is successful Google
| & Amazon get cheap green power. If it falls through they're not
| out anything but still benefit from the publicity for trying.
|
| This announcement has downside. If it fails, Amazon's
| investment goes to zero. Which means they likely did
| significant due diligence. This is a real commitment.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| you probably wanted to write Google&MSoft
| topspin wrote:
| Also, Oracle claims to have a location, "building permits" and
| is working on a design for a nuclear powered data center.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41505514
|
| That makes four big tech companies on board with nuclear in 30
| days.
| preisschild wrote:
| I would have thought that X-Energys HTR would be better suited
| for high-temperature process heat applications than electricity
| production for DCs
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The market has spoken. We need a shitload of reliable electricity
| and can't rely on the sun or wind.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Are you or the rest of America OK with a nuclear power plant
| being "in your backyard"? Maybe not literally, but any of the
| effects of it having problems.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Are you or the rest of America OK with a nuclear power
| plant being "in your backyard"?_
|
| Economists have the term market failure for configurations in
| which groups of individuals making decisions predictably
| produces bad outcomes [1].
|
| The last decades seem to imply that there is a broader social
| failure when high-frequency, echo chambered, outrage-based
| discussion results in suboptimal debate. This is true from
| our political media to social media to the quality of private
| policy debate in America.
|
| Nuclear power seems to exemplify that problem. If a public
| utility discusses nuclear power, every neighbour in the zip
| code will come out complaining about radiation. Even if their
| town is built on radioactive coal ash. Even if they live next
| to a missile silo, or near a port where our nuclear-powered
| fleet makes call. Private parties, on the other hand, can cut
| through the bullshit, which we usually see as bad, but plays
| a spoiler effect that maybe keeps the system from getting
| gridlocked.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_failure
| eagerpace wrote:
| If it means cheaper rates and better reliability, yeah, I am.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I would be fine with it.
| Retric wrote:
| Total construction of wind, solar, energy storage, and nuclear
| globally over the past decade is what the market is saying and
| it's saying it very clearly.
|
| Individual participants making different bets is how the market
| decides what's effective and what's wasteful. But you can't
| assume any subgroup is speaking for the total market, because
| they could be about to lose big. _Nuclear could make a huge
| comeback in the coming decades,_ but until that happens we can
| only talk about the market in terms of what the market is
| actually doing.
| preisschild wrote:
| It isn't. If you basically make it illegal by law through
| overregulation than thats not what the market is saying.
| Retric wrote:
| Regulations aren't what's driving nuclear to unprofitably.
| China which still builds nuclear and doesn't give a fuck
| about US nuclear regulations is still brining solar and
| wind to market vastly faster.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| but not bc nuclear is unprofitable. Nuclear there is
| 3-3.5bn/unit, dirt cheap. They just can't scale it faster
| due to stalling after fukushima events
| Retric wrote:
| Fucashma happened in 2011, their up over 4x since then
| with the total share of electricity from nuclear in China
| roughly doubled. It's just nowhere close to the changes
| seen in renewable generation.
|
| China is already trying to use coal as a peaking
| generation something it's terrible at. That's something
| nuclear is even worse at and what's ultimately limiting
| their nuclear ambitions. They slowed down the pass of
| nuclear construction despite nuclear only making up ~5%
| of their electricity supply it's simply an issue with
| nuclear not regulations.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| They reduced nr of builds after fk and ramped up only
| recently with 10+ reactors approved/yr. But agree it's
| still harder to scale than renewables, but they are
| gradually getting close to 4-5 years of build time for
| their designs so things may improve greatly in near time
| Retric wrote:
| I suspect the timing is simply coincidence. Solar became
| vastly more viable in that timeline and it can be rolled
| out from planning to electricity in months not years.
|
| Which then shifted overall electricity planning.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| it's not coincidence, they got panicked after fk, just
| like the rest of the world
| Retric wrote:
| Doubling nuclear generation in the next few years and
| increasing the number of reactors being planned hardly
| describes panic.
|
| Japan and Germany panicked. China did something else.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| China could build nuclear faster if they wanted to. They
| were building it faster in the 2010s and have slowed
| down, so they obviously have the capacity.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| yes they slowed down and ramping up again now. 10+
| reactors/yr approved, 30+ under construction, hualong
| build time of about 5 years, will probably drop to 4
| mpweiher wrote:
| You don't want to build out too quickly, because the
| plants are so long-lasting.
|
| If you are aiming for a fleet of 200 reactors, you should
| be completing 2 per year.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Yes, it's not because nuclear is unprofitable.
|
| It's because nuclear power plants are so durable, they
| last almost forever, but at least 80-100 years for modern
| plants.
|
| If you build out too quickly, you end up in the same
| situation the French found themselves in after the
| Messmer-plan predictions turned out to vastly
| overestimate demand: they were done after 15 years.
|
| With effectively no nuclear power plants to build for
| 45-85 years, their industry withered and they have had to
| re-learn building them. Not helped by the fact that there
| was a legal cap on the total amount of nuclear
| production.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| If the product doesn't appeal to the broader market place,
| i.e., the society it is in, then that's that. Markets are
| human institutions after all.
| cosmic_quanta wrote:
| Not necessarily. The grid of the future needs a plurality of
| solutions, one of which is clean baseload (e.g. hydropower,
| nuclear fission, or fusion).
|
| However, don't discount renewables. Paired with energy storage
| -- which isn't only chemical batteries! --, intermittent
| generation can be extremely useful across vasts parts of North
| America.
| Kye wrote:
| Flywheel energy storage is neat:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flywheel_energy_storage
|
| Add energy (speed) when available, use it to power things
| when not.
| Retric wrote:
| Baseload is a term used to describe a downside not some
| inherent requirement of the grid. Up to 30% of electricity
| can be supplied by "baseload" sources without issue, but
| scaling past that runs into increasing problems.
|
| Hydro is described as peaking power because it can be ramped
| up and down 100%-0%-100% multiple times in a single day. Very
| useful for tracking changing demand and intermittent energy
| from solar/wind.
|
| Coal/Nuclear has issues doing the same due to thermal stress
| and heat loss when not in use. The energy used to get things
| back to working temperatures requires fuel which isn't
| generating power, you also have ware issues from thermal
| cycling. Alternatively, you could keep things at operating
| temperatures but that's again spending fuel without
| generating electricity.
|
| On top of this Nuclear runs into if you try and ramp down
| very low very quickly, wait a few hours a then try and ramp
| back up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_poison To be
| clear 100%-30%-100% can be fine 100% to 0% to 100% isn't.
| cosmic_quanta wrote:
| You are right, I should have used the term "firm power"
| instead of "baseload"
| Retric wrote:
| "Dispatchable generation" may be a better fit for what
| you're talking about.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation
|
| "Firm power" is more about the type of relationship
| between energy generation and consumers than the actual
| technology being used.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firm_service
| mpweiher wrote:
| No, you were right, baseload is fine.
|
| Baseload is _load_ , so demand side.
|
| Firm power is _generation_ , so supply side.
| mpweiher wrote:
| Baseload is a a requirement of real electricity demand, it
| tends to be about 50-60% of total demand.
|
| Since intermittent renewables cannot do baseload, and get
| asymptotically more expensive trying, fans of intermittent
| renewables are trying to paint baseload as an obsolete
| concept by making intermittency primary.
|
| That is silly. Baseload is real and a major component of
| demand. Intermittent renewables can be a good addition, as
| their supply curves can actually match the variable part of
| the demand fairly closely (thought obviously not
| perfectly).
|
| It is not true that Hydro can be ramped arbitrarily. For
| example, just last year Finland had a huge problem with
| their plentiful hydro plants overloading the grid.
| Fortunately they also have significant nuclear that they
| were able to ramp down to compensate.
|
| With ~60% baseload, there is no need to ramp nuclear plants
| down to 0 rapidly. That's only necessary if you screw up
| your grid by having too much intermittent renewables and
| giving them priority. Don't do that.
|
| Alas, overloading their grid with renewables is exactly
| what some countries are doing, Germany for example. This is
| a really bad idea for a number of reasons. One is that due
| to even the average capacity factors being so low, you have
| to dramatically over provision in order to even achieve
| fully supply on average. However, that massive
| overprovisioning means that when weather is favorable,
| those massively over provisioned massively cannibalize each
| other (and other producers, if those still exist).
|
| The more you overprovision, the worse this gets.
|
| Reasonably ramping nuclear up or down is no problem. France
| for example has been using nuclear reactors almost
| exclusively for some time. Lower capacity factors for the
| nuclear plants than you'd really want, but otherwise not a
| problem. Their investment in renewables (aim seems to be
| around 30-40%) will likely increase the capacity factors of
| their nuclear plants. Good for them!
| Retric wrote:
| It's not the renewable cloud trying to redefine a term go
| back to 2005 on Wikipedia and you'll see: "A base load
| power plant is one that provides a steady flow of power
| reguardless of total power demand by the grid. Typically,
| nuclear power plants and most coal fired power plants are
| considered base load because it is more efficient or
| safer to run at a set output instead of trying to
| precisely match power consumption demands." https://en.wi
| kipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Base_load&oldid=1...
|
| You can find that definition used regularly in older
| books dating well before renewables where a thing.
|
| 01 April 1967: "This paper states some of the basic
| principles concerning daily and annual load factor on
| power systems, and the use of load duration curves in
| coordinating the type and operating pattern of generating
| plant. Operating procedure is explained, and the types of
| plant in use or under construction in New Zealand are
| described. Overseas plant is divided into the categories
| of base load, medium load factor, and peaking, with an
| outline of the desirable characteristics in each case."
|
| Also, time of day pricing shifts users to periods of low
| demand so it doesn't represent the minimum need, just the
| observed demand under specific pricing schemes. If
| daytime rates fall well below nighttime rates continually
| the actual usage at 3AM would fall dramatically.
| mpweiher wrote:
| > _Baseload is a term used ..._
|
| 'nuff said.
| Retric wrote:
| The space isn't relevant as per current Wikipedia "The
| base load[2] (also baseload)"
|
| There's an even older saying: "Better to remain silent
| and be thought a fool than to speak out and prove it."
|
| The article even goes on to use both, while making clear
| which definition the author is trying to promote: "Power
| plants that do not change their power output quickly,
| such as some large coal or nuclear plants, are generally
| called baseload power plants.[3][5][6]"
|
| In the wider context grid operators don't actually care
| about the specific absolute lowest demand number. They
| need to operate 24/7 for years so whatever the minimum
| number happens to be for a single second just doesn't
| matter much compared to blackouts and other extreme
| situations. Bottom 5th percentile matters from an
| economic standpoint, but very temporary extremes only
| matter in terms of resiliency.
| mpweiher wrote:
| It's not the space.
|
| You've consistently mixed up "baseload" and "baseload
| generation" (not usually called that), irrespective of
| spaces.
|
| There is baseload. That's demand.
|
| "The base load[2] (also baseload) is the minimum level of
| demand on an electrical grid over a span of time, for
| example, one week."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_load
|
| There is generation capacity that caters to that demand,
| for example "baseload generation" or better dispatchable
| generation. That is supply.
|
| > There's an even older saying: "Better to remain silent
| and be thought a fool than to speak out and prove it."
|
| True, true...
|
| You understand the difference between supply and demand?
|
| "This demand can be met by unvarying power plants[3] or
| dispatchable generation,[4]"
|
| Dispatchable generation can also service variable demand,
| but it is difficult to impossible for non-dispatchable
| generation to service baseload.
| Retric wrote:
| > There is baseload. That's demand.
|
| You're incorrect in several ways here. Utilities care
| about the _supply_ they need to generate not total
| customer demand because of inefficiency in the
| transmission network. People like yourself got confused
| when reading about existing terms and have been using
| them incorrectly ever since.
|
| Anyway you've been spouting so much nonsense I'm only
| going to respond to a fraction of it.
|
| The minimum power demand is the easiest to reach with
| intermittent sources via even minimal storage being by
| definition the lowest relevant number. It's also the
| least valuable electricity to supply which is why nobody
| actually does this. _You use energy from batteries when
| the price of that energy is highest._ That's a function
| of energy markets not inherent limitations on the
| technology. It's easy to move most use at 3AM to other
| times of the day because most of the consumption is due
| to cheap prices. Charging EV's late at night happens
| specifically because there's anything particular going on
| at 3AM and otherwise generation would be idle.
| leesec wrote:
| If the market is saying anything it's that solar and batteries
| will win out
| grecy wrote:
| Sweet, these new reactors will be online in 10-15 years in the
| _absolute_ best case.
|
| How cheap will wind, solar and batteries be then?
| Moldoteck wrote:
| but ppl say wind+solar+batteries are already much cheaper.
| Why then pour money in nuclear? Unless things are a bit more
| complicated...
| grecy wrote:
| That was my point.
|
| There is no universe where starting in on a new nuke today
| makes financial sense. They just take too long, cost to
| much to build and run.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| but big corpos are pouring money in it instead of pouring
| them in own renewable combo. So maybe they know
| something? And nuclear doesn't take much to run. EDF in
| France got 11bn profit last year and will beat it this
| year. And that's WITH govt limitation called arenh that
| forces them to sell 1/4 energy at lower price. EDF
| basically got f'd with foak builds in france,finland and
| uk, especially uk due to their overregulation and need
| for custom components but actually running nuclear is
| great business
| mpweiher wrote:
| In the Real World(tm), that turns out not to be the case.
| So your model of the real world needs updating.
| grecy wrote:
| 2GW of nuclear cost $34B in Georgia, and took decades to
| come online.
|
| China are currently building 27 reactors [1], and the
| average time is still 7 years for completion.
|
| [1] https://itif.org/publications/2024/06/17/how-
| innovative-is-c...
| mpweiher wrote:
| And electricity in Georgia is, after prices being raised
| to pay for this particular disaster, around half as
| expensive as electricity in California.
|
| Important point: even the most disastrous nuclear
| projects are better than "succesful" intermittent
| renewables.
|
| Nuclear power plants are big and take a while to build.
| They also reliably deliver truly stupendous amounts of
| electricity over an amazing amount of time.
|
| Totally worth it.
|
| Nuclear: an expensive way to generate cheap electricity.
|
| Intermittent renewables: a cheap way to generate
| expensive electricity.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| Afaik china now builds 30+ reactors with additional 10+
| approved. And completion time for many projects tends to
| be closer to 5 years Also vogtle was foak build, it's
| natural to be over time and budget. Still unit 4 was 30%
| cheaper than unit 3. The more you build the cheaper it
| gets
| mpweiher wrote:
| Not just FOAK, they also had to rebuild the industry. And
| of course there was politicking of the industrial
| players.
|
| And they had some major f-ups. For example, they used a
| new licensing process, which is all-up-front. This is
| _great_ , because it means you can get a single design
| approved and then just built that design over and over,
| instead of all these one-offs that then are all FOAK.
|
| Except.
|
| Their design wasn't actually done (correctly) when it was
| approved. So what got approved was safe (that's what the
| NRC checks). But it wasn't actually buildable, which is
| not the NRC's problem. So they had to go back to the NRC
| again and again to make changes, but within a process
| that wasn't meant to work that way. So sometimes it was
| cheaper just to tear down what they had built.
|
| COVID also didn't help.
|
| But now the Vogtles are built, and as you said the second
| AP-1000 was already 30% cheaper than the first. The next
| ones should be significantly better, not only for the
| usual FOAK stuff, but they have now built two of these,
| so they have plans that are actually buildable.
|
| Poland selected it, so did Ukraine.
| 7952 wrote:
| Maybe if you have high levels of renewables penetration.
| And for a couple of days per month the wholesale
| electricity price gets very high. And you can sell your
| nuclear power at very high rates to the market. Or at
| cheap market beating rates to your private customers.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The market has spoken and is saying the exact opposite.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Some, like me, welcome developments in solar, wind, battery and
| nuclear. They are all viable in their own way, and constantly
| improving.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| The UK is planning on having gas peaker plants that will run
| for a maximum of two weeks a year. The plan is to use CCS to
| make them carbon neutral.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I suspect we'll get a split where the elites will get the
| dependable, expensive nuclear energy for their playthings like
| AI data centers (powered from nearby nuke reactors) and that we
| plebeians will get the solar/wind/best effort grid supplies as
| they are more economical right now.
| HPsquared wrote:
| There's a nice synergy between data center operations and nuclear
| power. Similar requirements for high reliability, complex
| systems, redundancy, even things like electrical grids and
| cooling, and industrial HVAC are crossover points
|
| In other words, a lot of engineers could work quite happily in
| both fields.
| acdha wrote:
| Also consistent demand. Nuclear doesn't ramp up or down well
| and neither do datacenters.
| aurelien wrote:
| That was a great deal to dismentel AREVA in France to kick them
| from the edge of the Nuclear business and bring power back to
| America \o/
| makestuff wrote:
| Is Uranium relatively easy to find to power these reactors, or is
| the next wave of startups going to be space/deep ocean mining
| operations to find it?
| Moldoteck wrote:
| We have about 90 years of 'cheap' uranium, much more at
| increased price(which isn't that important for npp scale). If
| you factor in that at certain point reprocessing like Orano
| will be more economically profitable - we'll get in fact much
| more time to transition to fast/thorium reactors
| DrBazza wrote:
| Thorium has been on the horizon forever. A bit like we'll have
| fusion in 30 years. No government wants to solely invest in it,
| because it can't really be weaponised.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium-based_nuclear_power
| Moldoteck wrote:
| but you don't need reactors for weapons, you may as well
| build those without them, you just need an enrichment
| facility
| Sakos wrote:
| Proven by all the uranium 235 I've produced in Factorio
| before ever building a nuclear reactor.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| No problem weaponizing Thorium. The US even tested bombs with
| material from the thorium fuel chain.
|
| Quite easily chemically separated.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233
| mpweiher wrote:
| Nobody invests "solely" in it, because Uranium is plenty
| cheap and plenty plentiful, and the Uranium infrastructure is
| in place.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| China has an MSR online. Yes, it probably isn't using thorium
| yet, but a molten salt reactor is what's necessary in order
| to get to the thorium fuel cycle economically
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Is Uranium relatively easy to find to power these reactors_
| [...]
|
| Yes. Uranium is (currently?) cheap and plentiful, to the point
| that nuclear 'waste' fuel reprocessing isn't generally
| economically worth it: it's cheaper to store in and buy new
| fuel.
|
| If the price of uranium does ever spike or becomes harder to
| get to, then reprocessing can become an option.
| atomic128 wrote:
| See discussion of the uranium mining situation here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41661768
|
| which includes a risky method of profiting from the adoption of
| nuclear power.
|
| More detail here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41746562
| Octoth0rpe wrote:
| Instead of this, it might be interesting to see Amazon (or
| similar provider) offer some kind of compute tier whose
| performance (not memory or storage, just cpu/gpu) is dependent
| the amount of power from sun/wind being generated. For many
| internal applications, I could see that being an acceptable
| compromise for some amount of cost savings.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| Wait... But everyone says wind+solar+batteries are so much
| cheaper than nuclear. Why aren't big corpos pouring money in
| these instead to get even more output?
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Footprint? Maybe.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| imo - need for firm power
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _everyone says wind+solar+batteries are so much cheaper than
| nuclear. Why aren 't big corpos pouring money in these instead
| to get even more output?_
|
| Same reason it makes sense to build as much wind and solar with
| batteries _plus_ nukes as possible: scale. (And false
| dichotomy: they're _also_ investing massively in wind, solar
| and batteries.)
|
| We didn't produce enough batteries (or solar panels or wind
| turbines, for that matter) fast enough _before_ . For solar and
| wind, moreover, approval difficult scales with land area. You'd
| think nukes would be harder, but it's apparently easier to get
| a state to let you YOLO on land rights when it's on a small
| footprint.
|
| Solar and wind (with batteries) is still cheaper. Gas is
| politically problematic for Big Tech, so they go with nuclear.
| The voting public in America and Europe, on the other hand,
| chose gas.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| but considering acceleration of scaling solar/wind/battery
| production & it's fast deployment, they may as well wait 5-8
| years and build the stuff then. Unless they need firm power
| that solar+wind+battery can't provide enough unless you have
| huge overcapacity of all of them
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _considering acceleration of scaling solar /wind/battery
| production & it's fast deployment, they may as well wait
| 5-8 years and build the stuff then_
|
| Do you have sources for your time scale?
|
| The acceleration is massive and from a massively tiny
| baseline. AI is predicted to add 0.8% energy growth a year
| to American power use [1]; lots of that is going into gas.
|
| > _unless you have huge overcapacity of all of them_
|
| There is the political reality that what's been built has
| voting employees and tangibility in a way what is to be
| built does not. That's the danger in our deployment of gas
| turbines. If we hit an energy surplus, the first to get cut
| will be things not yet built, even if those are renewables.
| (Think: phase out of subsidies, maybe even grid charges.)
| Some enlightened jurisdictions will continue shutting down
| gas turbines to replace them with solar, maybe even nukes,
| but most won't.
|
| [1] https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/AI-
| poised-to-...
| kibwen wrote:
| _> AI is predicted to add 0.8% energy growth a year to
| American power use [1]; lots of that is going into gas._
|
| And given past performance, the nuclear projects being
| proposed here are projected to add 0% energy capacity to
| the grid within the next 20 years.
| graeme wrote:
| Baseload. Nuclear runs forever and you can put a datacenter
| right beside it to avoid grid complexities.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Nuclear only runs about 95% of the time. You still need to
| deal with grid complexities.
| Arnt wrote:
| 1.3 nines of reliability? Awesome.
|
| Do you have a source for that, how wide is the variation
| for different reactor types and operators, does it apply to
| individual reactors or whole sites when there are several
| reactors on one site?
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| The PRIS database has country averaged data for energy
| availability factor, capacity factor etc.
|
| https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/WorldStatistics/ThreeYrsEnergy
| Ava...
| Arnt wrote:
| I have to say: That looks as if they all value safety
| over uptime.
|
| Thanks.
| dsq wrote:
| An added value is that in off-hours nuclear can be used to
| produce hydrogen for carbon free fuel.
| Angostura wrote:
| Not arguing against you, but - as can wind and solar at
| times of excess generation.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Do data centers really have off-hours?
|
| I was under the impression that whatever drop in consumer
| usage exists overnight is made up for with ML training,
| video transcoding, etc. That there's never any shortage of
| tasks to run.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| There are. There's about one announcement a month for those
| deals. For instance Google inked deals with at least Energix,
| New Green Power and Black Rock in the last quarter.
|
| So the question then is: why do the nuclear deals make Hacker
| News and the solar deals don't?
| Moldoteck wrote:
| yes, but why not pour even more $ in those then since if it's
| cheaper = you get more kw for the same $?
| Arnt wrote:
| Spreading your bets is considered sensible.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why not pour even more $ in those then since if it 's
| cheaper = you get more kw for the same $?_
|
| Law of diminishing marginal returns: you don't. You either
| need to pay a premium for expedited delivery or eat the
| time value of delays.
| cartoonworld wrote:
| "Everybody" doesn't say solar, wind, or batteries is
| cheaper than nuclear. The question of what is "cheaper" at
| any given time isn't really relevant at this scale -- its
| cheap.
|
| Price and availability of electricity and power is more or
| less global, however datacenter customers are in the
| situation where they need to power a city with electricity
| in a location where there is neither an existing city nor
| its generation capactiy.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| For the same reason people support fluoridation of drinking
| water: they "trust the science" without even looking at it.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| fluoride is good stuff in limited quantity, like many other
| things.
| jpadkins wrote:
| drinking fluoride in small quantities doesn't have a ton of
| evidence of benefit. Brushing your teeth with fluoride
| does.
| snark42 wrote:
| They at least partly figured out fluoride for brushing
| teeth and in drinking water was a net positive based on
| teeth health and natural fluoride levels in wells around
| the world. CDC estimates it reduces cavities by 25%.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Not if you are a high-demand single point consumer like a data
| center. Google doesn't want to buy thousands of acres for solar
| panels, nor the hassles of installing massive batteries next to
| a new data center. A small nuclear reactor would be a much
| easier fit. A steady user also wants a steady power supply.
| Nuclear is very steady.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| Interesting to call building a "small nuclear reactor" an
| easier fit than simply putting up a bunch of containers with
| batteries, hooking them up and calling it day.
|
| I know what I would bet on.
| snark42 wrote:
| So if you build a decent sized data center to consume 160
| MWh you can get 2 SMRs and call it a day.
|
| Or you can buy 480 Tesla MegaPacks (about 6 acres) and 1600
| acres (it's roughly 1 MW per 5 acres) of solar panels to
| run the DC and charge the batteries during the day. Sure
| some can go on the building, but you'd still need way more
| acreage than that can provide.
|
| I know what I would bet on too.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Revealed preference
| setgree wrote:
| It feels like we're in a golden age of hard tech:
|
| * A major advance in spaceflight [0]
|
| * a ton of private investment in nuclear power [1]
|
| * AI models performing at PhD-level on some tasks [2]
|
| I know it can feel low-status to admire these accomplishments --
| it feels like we're aligning with/submitting to the people behind
| them -- but I perceive technological growth to be accelerating
| across a bunch of fields that matter to me.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41827362
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41858961
|
| [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03169-9
| tomcar288 wrote:
| why do you like spaceflight? i don't see that as addressing any
| major human needs
| cryptoz wrote:
| OP never said they liked spaceflight. They also didn't say
| anything about addressing human needs. They just said "hard
| tech golden age". So I think you are looking for a fight that
| isn't there.
|
| But anyway; let's take it at the best case curiosity. I do
| like spaceflight. Is it a problem to you what people like?
| Does _everything you like_ specifically address human needs?
| I find this confusing.
|
| Regardless, _all life on Earth is going to die_. I see it as
| a "major human need" to avoid death of our civilization and
| all other life we know of in the whole universe, if it
| becomes possible. And it does seem more possible now -
| because of the advances SpaceX has made with hard rocket tech
| in the last few years, specifically.
| setgree wrote:
| Well I did say that the field 'mattered' to me :)
|
| I would say that space flight is cool as a potential
| experience -- I hope that it's safe and cheap enough one
| day that I can go -- and I also think that life is good
| [0], so if we can spread life to more planets, that's good.
|
| [0] https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/this-is-the-dream-
| timehtml
| kulahan wrote:
| It is 100% guaranteed that, at some point in the
| (geologically) near future, humanity will need to leave Earth
| permanently, or move the planet or something to that effect
| if we _really_ want to.
|
| We should be _beyond_ ready by the time that comes. It 's not
| an immediate or daily human need, but it IS a human need.
| posterman wrote:
| Bold claim. Why?
| Filligree wrote:
| The sun is heating up, and Earth is going to become too
| hot. I'm not sure on the timeline; might be a few hundred
| million years. Might be more. It depends on how the
| atmosphere reacts.
|
| On that timescale we could use a gravitational tractor to
| fix it, if we insist keeping the planet around.
| tomcar288 wrote:
| ok, so we have a loooottt of time to do that. for now, i
| think humanity already has waaaayyyy tooo many problems
| to deal with before we need to worry about that.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| There's some stuff here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future
|
| 250 million years is an estimate for when the formation
| of a new supercontinent results in sufficient volcanic
| activity to drastically increase CO2 in the atmosphere
| and probably kill off all large mammals. 500 million is
| when C3 photosynthesis stops being possible and virtually
| all plants are gone, which would collapse all terrestrial
| ecosystems and leave behind very little animal life,
| probably none. There seems to be a very high likelihood
| of extinction level asteroid strikes happening well
| before either of these.
|
| But we're talking here about a span of time that is a
| thousand times longer than anatomically modern humans
| have existed up to this point. Given how far we've come
| since then, I don't know how you can possibly speculate
| what kinds of capabilities we might have by then to
| synthesize breathable air and food from raw disintegrated
| atoms of anything. If you look billions of years into the
| future, then it's going to get hot enough to sterilize
| the planet of any life whatsoever, which we probably
| can't overcome. If we can terraform other planets, we can
| terraform Earth itself, which would seemingly overcome
| any other challenge short of triple the heat that is
| eventually coming.
|
| It seems maybe a bit premature to think this is something
| currently living humans should worry about figuring out
| how to escape from.
|
| We might also note that, given the compartively short
| time it took humans to come about after the K-Pg event,
| it's probably reasonable to expect there is more than
| enough time before these "possibly all life killer" type
| far future things happen for some other kind of
| intelligent life that develops civilization and
| technology to replace humans if we go extinct by some
| means other than the planet being totally destroyed.
| Kon5ole wrote:
| Exploring is a major human need, as history has shown
| repeatedly.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Even if you don't enjoy the science/exploration angle,
| asteroid mining should be incredibly good for human needs.
|
| Any metal you can think of exists in phenomenal abundance
| there, and should be able to be exploited at minimal cost in
| the long run. Having huge supplies of cheap platinum, gold,
| nickel, cobalt etc would be extremely good for humanity. It
| also means we don't need to have dirty and ugly mines on
| earth.
|
| There is also the military angle. If the west lets China
| control orbit, we're in big trouble.
| protomolecule wrote:
| And if China let's west control the orbit, China is in big
| trouble.
| kibwen wrote:
| Asteroid mining is wildly uneconomical. There is no
| material to be found in large quantities on any asteroid in
| the solar system whose value justifies the development and
| installation costs of the infrastructure needed to get that
| material back to Earth.
|
| If you're building a megastructure in space, that's a
| different story. But please understand that mining gold or
| platinum from asteroids, at (literally) astronomical cost,
| will not do anything to advance the state of life on Earth
| except, at best, reduce the price of gold and platinum,
| which are not societal bottlenecks.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Perhaps. But I'd be more convinced if you gave some
| arguments.
|
| This article tells a very different story:
| https://www.cnet.com/science/rare-asteroids-near-earth-
| may-b...
|
| Platinum has a lot of industrial uses today at $1000/oz:
| https://market-news-insights-
| jpx.com/ose/commodities/article...
|
| At $10/oz it could be used for vastly more purposes.
| protomolecule wrote:
| That's what dinosaurs thought and then the asteroid hit the
| Earth.
|
| And, personally, I want a space telescope a thousand times
| bigger than James Webb. That's my biggest need after food,
| shelter, health and human connection.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> That 's what dinosaurs thought and then the asteroid hit
| the Earth._
|
| An asteroid-ravaged Earth is still more habitable than any
| planet in the solar system.
| tomcar288 wrote:
| I admit, this is very impressive: "AI models performing at PhD-
| level on some tasks" but it remains to be seen as to whether
| all this intelligence actually leads to greater productivity
| and whether that "productivity" even translates into higher
| earnings in a meaningful way.
|
| the way I see it, virtual goods (games, digital goods, etc)
| will continue to be ever more free and lower cost, while
| nothing much changes in the real world.
| nine_k wrote:
| Did you notice how closed captions generated from videos
| became really good? Did you notice that machine translation
| became usable for everyday tasks? Did you notice that you can
| direct your phone at an inscription in a language unknown to
| you, and get a translation put at the same spot on the
| picture, and an explanation of it read aloud to you? Does it
| make your very real life easier?
|
| All this stuff used to be high-end research with unstable and
| hardly usable results like 10 years ago.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Did you notice how closed captions generated from videos
| became really good?
|
| I've noticed the exact opposite over the last year or so.
| They've become riddled with errors of the sort that
| actively mislead people about what was actually said.
|
| > Does it make your very real life easier?
|
| So far, generative AI has not made my very real life any
| easier. It has made it more uncertain, though, and has made
| it harder to trust anything I am not seeing/hearing in
| person.
| OrigamiPastrami wrote:
| Are we just going to ignore the negative externalities of AI?
| From my perspective, the main product of AI is bots spamming
| social media with misinformation - largely with a goal of
| swaying elections.
|
| I'm not saying that AI is inherently evil and has no potential,
| but just ignoring the cost is misleading. It's like saying oil
| is wonderful and pretending global warming isn't a thing.
|
| The tech may be "hard" but that doesn't mean it's a net
| positive for society, which to me is what really matters. Of
| course this is all subjective and nobody can predict the
| future, but I just find this blind optimism to be self-
| destructive.
| threeseed wrote:
| a) It's not a major advance in spaceflight. It's a notable step
| but the last major advance was when Nasa enabled the
| private/public partnership and started to allow companies like
| SpaceX to exist in the first place.
|
| b) There is not a ton of private investment in nuclear power.
| It is a handful of LOI that history has shown usually doesn't
| translate to much.
|
| c) AI models do not perform at PhD level. They can solve some
| PhD level tasks but as Apple showed in their research the
| minute you swap out variables or add irrelevant information
| they fall apart. So clearly not evidence of intelligence.
|
| Not to be negative on anything because I do think we are in an
| incredible era but these aren't what I would consider the best
| examples.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I agree with 1 and 2, but 0 is questionable. Cheaper space
| flight is a great incremental improvement though.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I just wanted to take the opportunity to say something positive
| about these companies, since it's so rare that I find anything
| positive to say.
|
| I applaud these efforts. The amount of energy that's going to be
| burned by these things is crazy. Whether or not that energy use
| is wasted is an open question.
|
| I think it's a positive thing if the companies making these bets
| don't offload the costs of those bets onto public utilities, and
| also that they're looking at energy sources that have less of an
| adverse environmental impact than things like coal.
|
| Kudos, guys.
| hetrem wrote:
| > since it's so rare that I find anything positive to say
|
| Wonder why that is?
|
| > I think it's a positive thing if the companies making these
| bets don't offload the costs of those bets onto public
| utilities
|
| This is written as if with concern for public utilities which
| makes me wonder: Do you think they'll stop using public
| utilities? Do public utilities want that? How long until these
| companies try to outright replace public utilities?
|
| Still want that public money.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/10/03/nuclear-m...
|
| > Whether or not that energy use is wasted is an open question.
|
| Slop is a waste for us, but a boon in: data harvesting,
| surveillance, labor and union costs; for them.
|
| > also that they're looking at energy sources that have less of
| an adverse environmental impact than things like coal.
|
| You think these companies made this decision with altruistic
| concern for the environment?!
|
| M$FT makes recall a required dependency in explorer.exe -> "I'm
| so glad I can finally compliment these guys for caring about
| the environment."
|
| Make it make sense.
| nine_k wrote:
| > _Do you think they'll stop using public utilities?_
|
| They likely will stop using electric utilities. It's just
| simpler this way, more predictable.
|
| > _Do public utilities want that?_
|
| Maybe they do; a huge consumer usually negotiates special
| rates, and may require more costly infrastructure work
| because the capacity is not sufficient for them.
|
| > _made this decision with altruistic concern for the
| environment?!_
|
| No, more likely with an egotistic concern for the
| environment. Billionaires don't have a spare copy of Earth
| (Mars is even worse), and if you've got billions and can
| actually move the needle of the climate change to keep Earth
| in a better shape for you and your children, won't you?
| JohnFen wrote:
| You seem to think that I'm praising these companies. I'm
| certainly not. I think they're a net negative on society.
|
| That said, it's as important to acknowledge when they do
| something positive, even a little bit, as it is to call them
| out when they do bad things. More important, even, since if
| all a person can do is condemn then that person becomes less
| effective in terms of encouraging change. You want both
| carrot and stick.
|
| > You think these companies made this decision with
| altruistic concern for the environment?!
|
| Of course not. Nothing any of these companies do is
| altruistic. It's all about the Benjamins, baby.
| ck2 wrote:
| Make them pre-pay into a clear up fund. And carry massive
| insurance funds.
|
| No privatizing the profits but then socializing the cost of the
| waste disposal (and leaks).
|
| If the public has to pay for it as a EPA superfund site for
| cleanup, well then Amazon should then be sued out of existence
| for this.
| AnonMO wrote:
| We now have the three tech giants moving in on nuclear. I think
| we will have a race to see which SMR provider comes online first
| even though Nuscale canceled its pilot plant, sending shockwaves
| through the industry last year, there's a clear demand now. I
| wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft signs with an SMR provider in
| the coming weeks because the other players have. I would have
| said it would be Nuscale, but Sam Altman might move them to Oklo.
| kulahan wrote:
| I've been saying for years that we'll know the world is serious
| about energy when we see big pushes into nuclear power. We're
| here now. This is the point at which all the dumb "but what about
| a gorillion turbines and solar panels" start to die off (except
| for where they're legitimately a great solution) and talk about
| the _only_ viable power source moving forward will start to grow.
| This is super exciting to me.
| threeseed wrote:
| There are no big pushes into nuclear power. These are all tiny
| deployments that may never even happen.
|
| And those dumb turbines and solar panels produce power at a
| fraction of the cost of nuclear. And every year they get
| cheaper and more efficient. Which is why the market has
| continually decided over and over again to go in this
| direction.
| m101 wrote:
| Solar and wind emit a lot of CO2 upfront relative to the
| energy they produce down the line.
| nine_k wrote:
| So does nuclear, and in much larger absolute extent:
| production of steel and concrete, used copiously in NPP
| construction, inevitably releases a lot of CO2. Melting
| silicon or smelting aluminum, not nearly as much. (IDK
| about epoxy resin production.)
|
| I suppose that instead of eliminating the processes that
| produce large amounts of CO2, we should embrace them, learn
| to capture the CO2 where it's produced in high
| concentrations (like steel plants or cement furnaces), and
| either bind the carbon in non-volatile ways, like in
| plastics, or produce fuel from it again and close the loop.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| "A lot" is really subjective, so I'll link this chart
| instead:
|
| https://assets.solar.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2023/01/Carbon-f...
|
| I'd say 1-5% of coal is pretty good.
|
| Also as we make the power grid cleaner and switch to
| electric vehicles, the CO2 used in manufacturing goes down.
| Angostura wrote:
| Now run that in comparison to building and decommissioning
| a nuclear power station
| nine_k wrote:
| > _produce power at a fraction of the cost_
|
| Sadly, also for a fraction of the time.
|
| Until storage is solved in a satisfactory way, solar and wind
| will remain auxiliary. And the capacity should be in
| gigawatt-days.
| threeseed wrote:
| Well that fraction coincides with when demand is the
| highest.
|
| And storage is being solved as we have more batteries being
| deployed and grid supply capable EVs becoming more popular.
|
| The market is deciding where money should be allocated and
| it's simply not going towards nuclear.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| why would you want to share your EV battery capacity with
| the grid? I don't understand this. Range is entirely
| dictated by your EV capacity and you're going to "rent"
| back the capacity (and battery cycles) for night time
| hours? I don't understand how this would work at scale.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _why would you want to share your EV battery capacity
| with the grid?_
|
| Because you'd get paid for it, and you like free money.
|
| And it should be pretty trivial to set an option to
| ensure you always have the necessary range for your daily
| commute by a little bit before you leave your home.
| 7952 wrote:
| The most important metrics are cost and speed of co2
| reduction. An 80% renewable grid may achieve that more
| effectively than nuclear. It may be optimal to burn gas for
| a couple of weeks per year. Or to build massive pumped
| storage and nuclear stations.
|
| But trying to hit some purity target of 100% is irrelevant.
| There are lower hanging fruit for decarbonisation than the
| last few percent of power generation.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| If you're not serious about nuclear, you're not serious about
| climate change.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Source?
| atomic128 wrote:
| Germany is a tragic real-world example.
|
| Take a look at what Germany did to itself. Compare France.
|
| The anti-nuclear wind/solar proponents are dangerously
| wrong.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| That Germany's early retirement of its fleet was a bad
| idea does not mean that building more is a good idea.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Germany has been reducing its carbon emissions by
| increasing the ratio of renewable energy, year after year
| despite the exit from nuclear power.
|
| https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-
| energy-c...
|
| Isn't that the goal? If they can do that without nuclear
| power - great.
|
| Despite France's >50% nuclear power they have a much
| higher ratio of "dirty" power compared to Germany.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_France
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Germany's energy industry emits 6 times as much
| greenhouse gases per MWh of electricity generated than
| France: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2024/09
| /08/france-....
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#/media/Fi
| le:...
|
| Germany's energy is 80% fossil fuels. France's is 50%.
| I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that
| Germany's energy mix is less "dirty" than Frances.
| lancesells wrote:
| If you're not serious about energy consumption, you're also
| not serious about climate change. Unfortunately consumer and
| business technology wants to go the other way.
| epistasis wrote:
| Climate change fact #1: CO2 (and to some extent other GHG)
| is the cause of climate change.
|
| Climate change fact #2: energy consumption is not a cause
| of climate change, except for when it causes CO2 emission.
|
| Climate change fact #3: reduced CO2 emission will _not_
| stop climate change.
|
| Reducing energy usage is a losing climate strategy in three
| ways 1) it doesn't solve the problem, cutting emissions 50%
| does jack shit, we need to get to 0% emissions and then
| negative emissions. 2) It's politically ineffective because
| only some people and countries will actually reduce
| emissions. 3) It's political suicide because it validates
| false anti-climate change propaganda. 4) It's highly
| socially regressive because these dictates demand that the
| burden be placed mostly on developing countries.
|
| Reason #1 is enough to disqualify the "reduce energy usage"
| as a climate strategy, but really there's zero way to look
| at it and think that there's any validity. Please find
| better sources and stop spreading this counterproductive
| idea.
| epistasis wrote:
| More logically, if you're serious about climate change you're
| not serious about nuclear.
|
| This Amazon aims to only have 5GW of nuclear, on the grid in
| _15 years_ from now. That 's not a solution to climate
| change, it's not even a round error. It's a rounding error on
| the suddenly discovered need for new energy for AI, and a
| decade late for that. In 15 years, the grid will be
| completely decarbonized by solar and batteries and wind,
| existing nuclear/hydro, and probably some new tech like
| enhanced geothermal. This is the environment that nuclear
| will enter into, and it will have to compete with 15 more
| years of prices falling on batteries and renewables. SMRs
| can't compete on price with today's price for new large
| nuclear, existing new large nuclear can't compete on price
| with today's solar/wind/batteries, and today's
| solar/wind/batteries sure as hell won't compete with 15 years
| of prices falling. SMRs like this have no hope to be a
| competitive product.
|
| Nuclear has overpromised and underdelivered for 60 years. We
| should have kept existing plants running. If our anscestors
| had lit money on fire to produce a bunch of reactors 40 years
| ago, we'd be in a much better position.
|
| But we'd also be in a much better position had they not pooh-
| poohed solar and made bigger investments sooner, driving
| forward solar revolution by 15-30 years from where it is now.
|
| We'd have been in a much better position if there had been a
| massive investment in battery technology 15-30 years earlier,
| making EVs feasible sooner.
|
| Solar and batteries will be the foundation of the future,
| because they are technology that gets cheaper the more we
| invest in them. Nuclear might be around in 50 years, maybe
| not, but it won't be any cheaper or more affordable. It's a
| technology that barely moves the more we spend on it, and can
| sometimes be economically efficient in the best of cases, but
| the average case is big price overruns, and it's not uncommon
| for utilities to be brought to the point of bankruptcy.
|
| We have better technology available, today, to be deployed.
| Let's do it. Nuclear is a pipe dream from people that haven't
| run the numbers, or have run the numbers they have gotten
| them drastically wrong. The entire history of nuclear energy
| in this country is of people not running the numbers or
| running the numbers and getting them drastically wrong.
| nine_k wrote:
| Wind and especially solar are also serious. But their
| applications are different; they can offset the load when the
| sun shines, or the wind blows, but can't provide a stable
| source.
|
| If you need baseload, and need it carbon-free, your only option
| currently is nuclear. It's terribly encumbered, but apparently
| it's still less of an impasse that large-scale electricity
| storage currently is.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > If you need baseload, and need it carbon-free, your only
| option currently is nuclear
|
| What about geothermal, tidal, hydro, etc?
| nine_k wrote:
| Good, given the right geography.
|
| - Hydrothermal: great if you're in Iceland, or near
| Yellowstone, or other such place blessed by heated rock
| being close to the surface. Not as great if you need to
| drill 7 km to reach it.
|
| - Hydro: great if you have a lot of mountains and rivers,
| like Switzerland or Norway. Harder if you don't, like in
| much of Texas, to say nothing of Florida.
|
| - Tidal: great if you have a sea shore, preferably with
| narrow bays / fjords. But if you're in a place like
| Turkmenistan (one of the two doubly-landlocked countries),
| you resort to drilling for and burning methane %)
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Hydro has a bunch of problems.
|
| * most of the "good sites" have already been taken
|
| * hydro will regularly silt up, requiring constant
| dredging
|
| * hydro does not work as well or at all in drought
| conditions, which are increasingly common
|
| * hydro dams require reservoirs, which in addition to the
| obvious disruption of the displacement of thousands or
| even a million plus people in the case of Three Gorges,
| can end up emitting large amounts of carbon as flooded
| vegetation decomposes.
|
| * hydro is extremely disruptive to migratory fish. the
| success rate of interventions like fish ladders is in the
| low single digit percents. so you can get a bunch of
| carbon free power but also destroy an ecosystem in the
| process, not to mention any downstream fishing. and you
| see similar effects with other things that downstream
| users might want from the river like fresh silt.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > they can offset the load when the sun shines, or the wind
| blows, but can't provide a stable source.
|
| That they don't work when the sun doesn't shine or the wind
| doesn't blow is such a tired and trite remake.
|
| Yes, they don't provide consistent output _on their own_ ,
| but storage exists. If you need electricity store it in
| batteries or pumped hydro. If you need it for heating store
| it in thermal batteries.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| Grid connected batteries are only viable for a short
| duration, they aren't going to help when you don't have any
| wind for two weeks.
| Teever wrote:
| Is that a thing where they build wind farms? Like are
| there any wind farms where it is likely to occur with any
| regularity?
|
| In my region wind generation dipped down to only 1pc of
| capacity for a day or two last winter which seems to be
| the floor as far as I can tell.
|
| That tells me that we only need to increase capacity by
| 100x to get the coverage we want, and as a bonus we get
| all that surplus capacity most of the time to use on non-
| essential industry.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| When's the last time the North Sea had no wind for two
| weeks?
| nazgul17 wrote:
| Not everyone can use energy from the North Sea.
| ImJamal wrote:
| Can the North Sea wind provide enough for 100 million
| people?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| >Yes, they don't provide consistent output on their own,
| but storage exists
|
| I think this varies depending on where you live. In
| California, Cal-iso has a really cool dashboard that seems
| to show that they have enough battery storage to hold about
| 90 minutes of daytime solar generation.
|
| Definitely not something that can handle a fully cloudy day
| yet (presumably it's cheaper to keep some natty gas plants
| ready to spin up or import than to store more excess
| solar?)
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| They do. The good news is that the limit factor on that
| growth appears to be getting through the grid
| interconnect queue rather than a lack of people willing
| to pay to build them: https://emp.lbl.gov/news/grid-
| connection-backlog-grows-30-20...
| nine_k wrote:
| Storage exists, but it's insufficient and expensive.
|
| We need 30x, or maybe 100x more storage. After that, we
| could live on renewables only, and keep gas-fired plants
| only as a disaster-recovery tool, like diesels in
| datacenters.
|
| Until then, we need stable generation which does not spew
| CO2, which is, well, nuclear. It's hard to tell if
| ubiquitous cheap utility-scale batteries emerge in 5 years
| or 50 years.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Storage exists, but it 's insufficient and expensive_
|
| It's just insufficient. Solar + storage is cost
| competitive with nuclear. The problem is we have a
| bajillion needs for batteries, a Balkanised global market
| and wholly insufficient production forecasts over the
| next decade without gas or nuclear support. Voters seem
| to like gas. Private participants are choosing nuclear
| where they can.
|
| Good to be a gas exporter for the next half century or
| so.
| caseyy wrote:
| There are pumped storage hydro-electric plants with
| abundant and cheap capacities. They also work and are in
| use, mostly in China and Japan.
|
| China is building a lot more, too. It will probably have
| 80% of the world's energy storage capacity in a decade.
|
| We just don't talk about them in the West for some
| reason. I guess battery tech is more appealing somehow
| but it's not cheaper nor more environmentally friendly,
| all in all.
|
| I hope that now once there are some serious users of
| power, they might build some of these plants, and then
| governments in the West will wake up to how good the
| plants are.
| nine_k wrote:
| It is expensive, almost $100 per kWh stored, plus
| construction costs that involve fireproofing and spacing
| things because lithium batteries are flammable. And a
| lithium battery loses capacity with every recharge, so it
| needs replacement every few years.
|
| We need batteries that cost, say, $10 / kWh, are not (as)
| flammable, not toxic (not Pb, not NiCd), and don't
| degrade too fast.
|
| With that, they can be large, heavy, have low specific
| charge, require high or low temperatures (within reason),
| etc. For a large utility-grade installation all these
| qualities are not hugely important. There is plenty of
| space under solar panels and around wind turbines anyway.
|
| Before that, selling methane remains a very good business
| indeed.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > Until then, we need stable generation which does not
| spew CO2, which is, well, nuclear.
|
| A nuclear plant in the USA takes oh about 18 years to
| build. That's 18 years of solar, wind, and storage growth
| and cheapening.
| DCH3416 wrote:
| > "but what about a gorillion turbines and solar panels"
|
| It's a good thing to have a diverse portfolio of energy
| solutions to help avoid single points of failure in the
| network. Especially as something like solar continues to become
| more and more efficient.
| fraboniface wrote:
| I don't really understand this argument. How are dozens of
| nuclear power plants a single point of failure? Because of
| the uranium mining and processing? Then we can invest in fast
| reactors, which consume 100x less and require less R&D than
| renewables have benefited from in the last decades. Or
| seawater uranium, another 100x in reserves, distributed all
| around the world.
| robryan wrote:
| The problem is more our lack of ability to build them
| quickly and in a cost effective way. An investment in solar
| will much more reliably and quickly turn into a certain
| amount of power generation.
|
| Hopefully this changes once every nuclear project isn't
| some complex bespoke thing that is likely to be late and
| over budget.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > How are dozens of nuclear power plants a single point of
| failure?
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/nuclear-power-plants-
| struggling-...
|
| "Amidst a slow-burning heat wave that has killed hundreds
| and sparked intense wildfires across Western Europe, and
| combined with already low water levels due to drought, the
| Rhone's water has gotten too hot for the job. It's no
| longer possible to cool reactors without expelling water
| downstream that's so hot as to extinguish aquatic life. So
| a few weeks ago, Electricite de France (EDF) began powering
| down some reactors along the Rhone and a second major river
| in the south, the Garonne. That's by now a familiar story:
| Similar shutdowns due to drought and heat occurred in 2018
| and 2019. This summer's cuts, combined with malfunctions
| and maintenance on other reactors, have helped reduce
| France's nuclear power output by nearly 50 percent."
|
| France is about the _best_ existing case for nuclear,
| incidentally.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Thats one of the shortcomings of using a river with
| variable flow over an ocean or large lake
| Loughla wrote:
| Ocean yes, but then that opens you up to hurricanes
| and/or tsunamis.
|
| Lakes can dry up. So that's no better than a river I
| would think.
|
| Either way, there are no fully safe and permanent sources
| of cooling water, is what I'm taking away from this.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Certain lakes aren't going to dry up within human
| timescales. And disaster risk is present in a lot of
| places. Just something you take into account when you
| build it.
| oakwhiz wrote:
| It's possible to use "dry cooling" for a nuclear reactor.
| [1][2] The thermodynamic efficiency would be much lower,
| but it is possible to use alternative thermodynamic
| cycles/methods, for example reactors sent into space have
| used radiative cooling since there is no realistic way to
| use fluids to finally reject the heat.
|
| 1. http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2018/ph241/duboc2/
|
| 2. https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-
| and-fu...
| cryptonector wrote:
| So basically radiators. They would have to be huge, and
| they would have to move huge amounts of air through them.
| As a backup that might work, probably using a hybrid
| where a water body is used for cooling and air is the
| fallback.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The issue outlined above is a problem for all thermal
| plants. Coal and gas plants would suffer from the same
| issue.
|
| Furthermore, nuclear plants don't need to be cooled with
| potable water. They can be cooled with ocean water, or
| with waste water. In fact, seawater cooling is the most
| popular form of cooling. Only 15% of nuclear plants are
| cooled with river water.
|
| https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/current-
| and-fu....
| cryptonector wrote:
| To be fair, and as a non-fan of wind (kills birds, annoys
| animals and humans) and solar (lowers the albedo of the
| planet, denies sunlight to parts of the local ecosystem),
| wind and solar do not have this cooling requirement. So
| that's nice. But anyways, you can always use sea water if
| you have access to the sea, or rely on a geographically-
| very-large grid for the diversity of sources that GP says
| we need.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| A geographically large grid will require extensive
| transmission network upgrades. That has to be factored
| into the cost competitiveness of these sources.
|
| Renewable generation itself is cheap. But what's
| expensive (or straight up unfeasible) is everything
| required to mitigate the intermittent production. Storage
| at the scale of tens of terawatt hours can't even be
| feasibly built with current technologies. Moving
| electricity over thousands of miles, across mountain
| ranges, would require HVDC lines to be constructed in
| very rugged terrain.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Europe's and the U.S.'s grids are geographically large.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Correct, but most generation is still produced close to
| demand. If you look at a map of where power plants are
| located (https://synapse.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/
| 201fc98c0d74...) you'll see they're concentrated near
| cities. The grid spans a large area, but most energy is
| transmitted over a short distance.
|
| Renewables, due to their low energy density and specific
| weather requirements, need to be built in remote areas.
| This has led to situations where the grid cannot
| accommodate transmitting the amount of energy that
| proposed renewable plants will produce:
| https://www.vox.com/videos/22685707/climate-change-clean-
| ene...
|
| People often cite the decentralized nature of renewables
| as an advantage. It's not. It's a significant
| disadvantage as it has a much bigger burden on the
| transmission infrastructure.
| threeseed wrote:
| And who is going to pay for all of this R&D and investment.
|
| The market doesn't want it, banks don't want to finance it,
| researchers aren't interested and startups can't afford to.
|
| You can't fight against market dynamics when you're talking
| about capital expenditure this high.
| datadeft wrote:
| Isn't solar energy a SPOF? It goes to zero MW roughly every
| 12 hours at any given location on Earth where most people
| live due to the availability of the Sun's light.
| hoherd wrote:
| Maybe, but at what cost? There is no such thing as "solar
| fallout". Doesn't the SPOF come with the trade-off of
| incredibly low risk of causing long term high-mortality
| rates of all life in the surrounding area?
| numpad0 wrote:
| [delayed]
| hindsightbias wrote:
| I've been saying for years that new nuclear plant development
| will be evidence of an AGI fufilling its physiological
| hierarchy of needs. I see Starship as another requirement.
| epistasis wrote:
| How are any of these things connected?
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| The basic economics of power generation do not agree with your
| contention.
|
| The reality is that this is all nuclear can rest its hopes on.
| Industry specific applications, because for general electricity
| generation it is hopelessly non-competitive.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Unfortunately, this isnt to sustain exiwting enetgy, its to add
| powER TO AI GIGO.
| newsclues wrote:
| I feel like this is only happening because financial projections
| were discovered to be impossible to meet with the current power
| generation and the trends for building new power were
| insufficient.
| krunck wrote:
| I'd rather wait for fusion. Fission is dirty and creates more
| radioactive waste than we know how to deal with. A tsunami
| hitting a fusion plant would not do much except knock it out of
| commission. Fission on the other hand ....well, we've seen that
| already. We've seen many times how messy fission is.
| AdamTReineke wrote:
| Plenty of room in old coal mines to stash all the waste we
| could ever want.
| kibwen wrote:
| Fusion will not be economical in our lifetimes. Compared to
| fission, you've replaced an expensive and dangerous fuel with a
| cheap and safe fuel, and replaced an expensive containment
| vessel with the most complex machine ever engineered by
| mankind, that also needs to be disposable because of the absurd
| energies contained within.
|
| We already have a perfectly good fusion reactor. It's about 1
| AU away, and it's beaming more power to us than any Kardashev
| Type I civilization could ever use (and small-scale fusion will
| be useless to any Type II civilization anyway).
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| As far as I understand it, no matter what kind of magic
| fusion device you come up with, it's going to be throwing off
| lots of fast neutrons which will be absorbed by the equipment
| generating the fusion reaction
|
| So a fusion reaction will gradually irradiate the generator
| that is creating the reaction.
|
| A molten salt reactor which consumes virtually all of its
| nuclear fuel as the closest approximation to your desire to
| have nuclear reactors without nuclear waste.
|
| Edit: I recall that helium 3 fusion may actually be pretty
| neutron free. But you got to get your hands on a lot of
| helium 3
| EasyMark wrote:
| Fusion won't happen in our lifetimes, we just don't have the
| science and materials to do it, unless by some miracle AI
| actually proves its worth and figures out the containment
| problem, that also seems like a stretch.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The comment about nuclear waste could not be further from the
| truth. All of the radioactive waste from nuclear electricity
| generation in the US fits in a volume equivalent to a football
| field stacked 10 meters high:
| https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-fast-facts-about-spent-...
|
| The meltdown at Fukushima amounted to a very small proportion
| of the total damage incurred by the tsunami. No deaths due to
| radiation besides a couple plant workers are expected. The
| exclusion zone was cleaned up and reopened after about a
| decade. The learnings from this event should be that nuclear
| isn't actually all that risky, relative to how much carbon-free
| energy it generates.
| A1kmm wrote:
| AI training demand should in theory be extremely elastic. Scale
| up when and where power is cheap, scale down when and where it is
| expensive. Training larger models takes a long time, and storing
| or moving the current training checkpoint is not that expensive.
|
| Inference is somewhat elastic - people want relatively low
| latency - they might be able to tolerate an extra round-trip
| around the world, but probably not waiting until a time when
| there is more total capacity.
|
| However, the big impediment to using cheap and green power is the
| capital cost of the training hardware; that can't be moved around
| in a hurry, so its capacity goes unused when the sun isn't
| shining and the wind isn't blowing. Much of the cost of the high-
| end data centre oriented GPU hardware is likely not incremental
| cost for nvidia - it is recovering fixed costs, or profit. In
| addition, people buying the hardware fear it will depreciate, so
| they have a limited time frame to use it.
|
| So it is fair to say that it is nvidia's pricing strategy that is
| a significant driver of Google, Microsoft and Amazon investing in
| nuclear.
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