By P Gosselin
Germany’s green movement was propelled mainly by activists opposed to nuclear power in the 1980s and 90s. Since then, Germany has shut down its entire fleet of nuclear power reactors and is struggling to keep the lights on with renewable energy, mainly wind and sun.
Today German activists are focused on shutting down the remaining fossil fuel power, which in a normal world would make nuclear power attractive again. But not for the fundamentalist enviro-nutjobs. However, they may need to give in if they want to continue enjoying the amenities of the modern digital world and smartphones.
Blackout News here reports. “After Oracle and Microsoft, Google also plans to power its data centers with nuclear power.” apparently, wind and sun just don’t make the grade. CO2-neutrality just won’t be possible without nuclear power.
“Google’s leadership confirms the company is working on large-scale data centers that require over 1 gigawatt of electricity. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, spoke last week at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh about the potential use of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) for power generation,” reports Blackout News, citing powermag.
According to reports, Google is currently forming a team to research alternative energies without CO₂ emissions and plans to use small modular nuclear reactors to power its AI data centers.
“We are now working on data centers with over 1 gigawatt of power. Two years ago, we wouldn’t have imagined that, and all of that requires energy,” said Pichai in Pittsburgh.
Today, many of Google’s data centers operate on a basis of about 90 percent CO2-free. But 100% won’t be possible without nuclear, it appears.
Pichai said he sees money going into SMRs …for nuclear energy and that he’s optimistic about the medium to long term energy needs being met.
As AI expands, so is the interest in data centers, which require enormous amounts of power to operate. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison plans to invest more than 10 billion dollars in building data centers and Microsoft aims to restart the reactor at the decommissioned Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania to meet the energy requirements for AI.
“Microsoft last week said it wants to restart a reactor at the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to power its AI needs. The company in January said a demonstration project in Wyoming, as part of a collaboration with Caterpillar and Ballard Power, showed how hydrogen fuel cells can provide power for a data center,” reports powermag here.
Amazon Web Services plans to buy power from the 2.5-GW Susquehanna nuclear plant for its nearby data center campus.
Big Tech’s move to nuclear energy to power its data centers show that green energies like wind and sun alone cannot meet the energy needs of our modern digital world.
Read entire article at powermag.
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They are business people and despite them paying lip service to the eco loons they probably realize they can make a fortune selling power to grids like CA and NY when those grids near implosion due to inane state energy policies. Going to suck for the consumer though.
Seems insane when you add the thought: Yeah, but the consumers vote!
These numbskulls are not business people. The coming AI implosion will show that. They are nothing but one trick pony monopolists grasping for their next hyperscaler fix.
What will happen is: someone will create a product where existing nuclear power plant generated electricity is accepted as “green” electricity and then sold to these data centers as a fictional product, much as existing carbon credits work.
That’s what happens when you let the consumer side of the market decide what it needs, not head-in-the-clouds idealists who think they know what’s best for everyone else!
“…showed how hydrogen fuel cells can provide power for a data center,”
__________________________________________________________
And the hydrogen comes from exactly where?
A special sort of hydrib unicorn, of course. !!
That was my first thought.
There are now several new catalysts by which to generate huge volumes of hydrogen – one of which is iron based – and the earth has a lot of iron ores.. Not only that but we already have a hydrogen distribution system – the old coal gas piping from 100+ years ago – which can be (and in some cases is already being) easily updated by interlining. Remember that coal gas was c. 60% hydrogen and it is known to be safe to handle.
“cat·a·lyst /ˈkadləst/ noun
a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.”
Doing it faster will definitely change the required inputs?
You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.
How true that is. But Germany has good company in the econo-suicidal UK. Slightly different paths to the same awful rabbit hole.
It’s a pretty stark contrast. The German green movement is all about de-development, de-industrialisation and some sort of Star Trek village of noble savages. Watch that Prime Directive, now… And yet the modern world will be ever more energy hungry; how many can manage without an electric toothbrush?
Previously everything electronic had a clock in it somewhere, now it’s bluetooth and wi-fi. Do I really need to be able to start my dishwasher remotely by phone? Why not press the button before you close the door?
The point is energy use will not and cannot come down. AI is about to make matters a whole lot worse. Nobody touting renewables – like username – has a subsidised hope. I see a big fork in the road coming up.
Never mind a big fork in the road, I can see a lot of determined little folk with forks standing in the road.
They are in Lambeth, OSD.
Pitchforks in hand against the dreaded LTNs…
“”Lambeth Council is facing a High Court challenge over a new low-traffic neighbourhood (LTN) scheme in West Dulwich. West Dulwich Action Group has accused the council of “disregarding” public opinion after implementing the plan despite widespread disapproval.
…
“Democracy has been replaced with diktats, as councillors and staff relentlessly pursue a green ideology””
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/ltn-west-dulwich-lambeth-council-court-south-london-b1184839.html
“Previously everything electronic had a clock in it somewhere”
It stil does. In electronics, the word clock usually means anything that creates a signal for predictable timing. Your cell phone probably has more than 3 inside.
Downvote for a fact? No, seriously, the chips in the bluetooth transceiver, the wifi router, the phone and the computer all have a pin named “clock”. Its part of digital electronics and has been for generations.
Once they only had the clock, right?
People who downvote are pretty sad. Say something
Just more German ineptness.
Where once Germany held the high world standards for engineering.
FIFY. Wind and sun alone can’t supply the energy needs of modern civilization, period. With or without “AI.” AI does nothing more than put a spotlight on the ALREADY EXISTING PROBLEM.
As for “hydrogen fuel cells?!” Give me a break. WHERE DO YOU GET THE HYDROGEN???! Once again, from fossil fuels.
If you want “zero emission” electricity, you build nuclear power plants, period. If you’re not willing to go there, accept that there will be “emissions” and STFU.
Based on US politics I think the anti-nuke party has opted to accept that there will be “emissions” and STFU. Now what do they do about the generation they’ve whipped into a fervor over said “emissions”?
All energy intensive industries…AI Data Centers included…should probably be required to produce their own uninterrupted energy supplies. They could then not worry about Grid Blackouts and potentially become Net Exporters of energy back into the grid.
Germany already is left behind as is the rest of Europe and this started when the Treaty of Rome was signed in 1958 by Germany, Italy, France, BeNeLux to create the EEC which begat the EU with its now 26 members – protectionist, near autarkic zone, with centralised, technocratic governance.
Thus began the EU Countries’ decent into economic stagnation making it increasingly less competitive with the rest of the World.
The Net Zero lunacy is just the finishing touches.
Does USA follow Europe with time delay or is it different?
Does China eventually follow USA?
The answer to your first question will only be known after November 5
Preface:
Please do NOT read this as my endorsement of wind and solar. Those are niche energy sources that have limited application but are not efficient or effective or practical for grid scale implementation. The rush to implement is more than just dangerous. It is at the tipping point for catastrophe.
The discussion:
The problem with wind and solar, from a system perspective is they have the wrong implementation model.
Ignore for the moment that they are intermittent.
Ignore for the moment the environmental impacts.
Ignore for the moment that they are financially negative (subsidies, etc.)
Ignore for the moment that producing them emits more CO2 than what they intend to replace.
Ignore for the moment all of the other negatives.
The model is wrong.
They want to build the farms and connect to the grid then add batteries to “stabilize” the grid.
This is bass-ackwards.
Look at cell phones, laptops, hybrid cars, and a plethora of other electronics. How do they work? They are powered by batteries as the primary energy source and something unrelated to the electronics operating is used to re-energize the batteries.
To have even the remotest possibility of success, the unreliable implementation needs to first build the batteries. First.
The batteries absolutely need to be sized for long-term, sustained energy output.
The batteries will provide a stable grid voltage.
The batteries are intrinsically able to handle most load variations. Voltage turn on delays for load changes are sub-second, based entirely on the chemistry.
Once the batteries are in place, add the ability to charge the batteries.
Like with a laptop, once the battery is fully charged, then the charging system provides any excess electricity to keep the circuits alive.
If the load is greater than the recharging system, the battery stabilizes the power bus.
A detail:
The existing power stations have to be kept online to keep the batteries charged. Only after the alternate charging network is up and online can the existing power stations be decommissions. In other words a planned transition that will take months or years or longer.
Inverters provide the A.C.to the grid of course, but adding more D.C. charging capability is relatively simple.
Adding more battery capacity upstream from the inverters is relatively simple.
Simple, but not cheap, but we are ignoring costs for the moment.
what we want is cheap energy
Ignore for the moment that they are financially negative (subsidies, etc.)
Ignore for the moment that you must be Ignore-ant to demand they replace reliable sources
I wasn’t referring to fake cheap renewables- but to truly cheap energy we’d get if the government(s) liberated the ff industry. We’ve had OPEC for several decades. Without that racket and with ff friendly governments- a barrel of oil would be far cheaper. And NG too.
Traditional line is that Tesla’s AC defeated Edison’s DC for consumer electricity. Battery storage being DC, and DC-AC conversions becoming “easy” reopens the discussion?
Yes, Tesla prevailed of Edison. Part of it was an A.C. generator is simpler than a D.C. generator. Part of it was the ability to get the electricity from point A to point B.
The other part:
Line losses for A.C. (RMS) and D.C. are based on current and resistance.
In the day, Edison could not generate a sufficient D.C. voltage to overcome line losses.
A.C. by use of transformers can and the I^2 x R losses are manageable.
In both implementations for a fixed wattage, increasing the voltage reduces the current and I^2 x R losses go down. Transformers, however, introduce efficiencies that are not part of a D.C. system.
Plusses and minuses.
History aside, our power grid today is predicated on A.C. power generation. It is not a simple fix to convert it to D.C.
Every house uses A.C. All appliances are A.C. Chargers for phones are A.C. to D.C., but a D.C. to D.C. buck convertor is simple enough and would allow charging via a D.C. grid.
Now, to your question. DC-AC conversion is via a device called an inverter. Those are required in a battery system connecting to the existing A.C. grid.
Does this reopen the discussion? No. The discussion has been ongoing since Tesla and Edison first introduced the concepts.
Your car runs on D.C. (the battery). That alternator is A.C. The output is bridge rectified (a simple A.C. to D.C. converter) and recharges the battery.
“Today, many of Google’s data centers operate on a basis of about 90 percent CO2-free.”
I’m not saying this isn’t accurate as I don’t have any data to refute it, but on the surface it doesn’t pass the smell test. Pichai should be challenged on this comment and pushed to provide the data to back it up.
“many of” … “about”
Well, that obviously excludes the CO2 emitted during construction of the facility and manufacture of the electronics.
“many of Google’s data centers operate on a basis of about 90 percent CO2-free”
I doubt it.
If one only uses a narrow view of electricity for the electronics, perhaps it could be.
“Germany’s green movement was propelled mainly by activists opposed to nuclear power in the 1980s and 90s”
Same origin story everywhere.
Much was made of the difference between the prevailing science and the prevailing religion in those years – now the same partisans are faced with deciding whether environmentalism is a science thing or a religion thing – ie if they have to have nuclear (against their religion?) to also have AI (for their science?) which way do they go?
I believe they, environmental wack jobs, are primarily Malthusians. So the more people they can kill through policy ,the better.
Re: “We are now working on data centers with over 1 gigawatt of power. Two years ago, we wouldn’t have imagined that, and all of that requires energy,” said Pichai in Pittsburgh.
Googling Chernobyl: “The plant would eventually consist of four RBMK-1000 reactors, each capable of producing 1,000 megawatts (MW) of electric power …”
for non engineers, 1 gigawatt = 1,000 megawatts.
How many very large power users are there in the US? Big tech, steel and aluminum, some manufacturers and I don’t know what else. Wouldn’t it make sense for these outfits to generate their own energy? They could generate what they need when they need it and not affect the grid one way or another. Small Modular Nuclear Reactors seem ready made for this purpose. The power companies could build the big reactors we are familiar with for the rest of us.
AI and data centres will get their own nuclear power. Humans won’t. When people started complaining not many years ago that the elites were taking everything from ordinary people, I bet they never thought that the elites would turn out not even to be human.
100 star post
What you really want is more data to plug into the fickles models to work out what level of PR slushfunding is required to hide the fact that making fickles dispatchable with the requisite voltage and frequency is horribly expensive-
SA government to trial energy data collection to avoid electricity price hikes | Watch (msn.com)
Well that and working out some bragging rights for the cheapest rate electricity when the punters don’t want it of course.(marginal cost and average cost must always be contextualised here) Otherwise the deplorables will work out they’ve been lied to big time with the fickles are cheaper meme.
fickles = feckless?
The article smells of Big Brother.
“Germany’s green movement was propelled mainly by activists opposed to nuclear power in the 1980s and 90s.”
Don’t forget the role of the acid rain scare. As Rupert Darwall writes in his book, “Green Tyrany”, “Acid rain was not only a precursor of global warming; it was the prototype. Both mobilised the same constituencies – alarmist politicians, NGOs and credulous politicians – amplified by sensationalist media reporting……Both (acid rain and global warming) had the capacity to induce hysteria- if anything, more extreme in Germany at the height of the acid rain scare in the early 80s than anything since.”
Interestingly, as a forerunner the BBC’s commitment to include references to climate change in all its programmes, the BBC included acid rain in a programme about learning German. The programme was made in 1984.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfNAcxqwFJg&list=PLsfkZZGbu8VT8y6L3YbFsfslp8CwzEvwl&index=14
Go to 8.32.
Last year I visited the Harz mountains in Germany. A lot of the trees were dead. This was now blamed on climate change. Funny how climate change is affecting trees in the Harz but not elsewhere.
Most likely the trees were killed by an infestation of moths or beetles.