Essay by Eric Worrall
Wasn’t there this issue, climate something, which used to be important to these people?
Day after nuclear power vow, Meta announces largest-ever datacenter powered by fossil fuels
Louisiana facility’s three natural gas turbine plants to churn out 2,262 MW
Brandon Vigliarolo
Thu 5 Dec 2024 // 22:20 UTCRichland Parish, an idyllic rural area in northeast Louisiana, USA, is set to host a gigantic new Meta datacenter.
But instead of being powered by one of the on-site nuclear power plants Zuckercorp has previously advocated for, the facility is opting to drive its AI computing workload by burning more fossil fuels.
The 4 million square foot, $10 billion facility, hailed by Louisiana governor Jeff Landry as “a game changer,” is one of the largest private capital investments in the history of the bayou state and will be Meta’s largest-ever datacenter, the Facebook parent said.
Meta has decided to jump the atomic gun with this project by partnering with Entergy instead. The power generation company plans to construct three combined-cycle combustion turbine (CCCT) plants with a total energy generation capacity of 2,262 megawatts.
…
Read more: https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/05/meta_largestever_datacenter/?td=rt-3a
As I predicted a few weeks ago, it was inevitable the insatiable AI driven demand for energy would outstrip the ability to satisfy that demand with low hanging fruit like re-commissioned nuclear plants. But I expected them to wait a few years until the climate movement was safely dead and buried, before forging ahead with a mad dash to commission new fossil fuel plants.
To be fair Facebook’s energy partners Entergy claim in the article that the power plant could run on up to 30% green hydrogen. I’m sure this will happen one day. For sure. Sometime after they attach wings to pigs.
If you are interested in learning why AI requires such a crazy amount of energy, and why that insatiable demand for AI led big tech to dump big green, the following article delves into AI energy use in detail.
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Duuh! Zuckerberg is a hypocrite. As if that is news.
What I wonder is if he was jawboned into making a major contribution to one political party in 2020. It is well known social media companies were “persuaded” to suppress anything online that did not fit “the narrative”, whether on Covid or The Laptop From Hell.
-Norm MacDonald on Bill Cosby
Yeah, because Zuckerberg matters despite all evidence to the contrary.
Of course it is green, as in greenbacks. So who couldn’t see this coming? John Kerry I am sure has an undisclosed interest in this project perhaps as a fraud consultant.
I’m sure Lurch will serve a useful purpose like a measuring stick to ensure doors are framed to their proper height
Never take any notice of what climate cranks say, just look at what they do (or don’t do).
Misquote in that last sentence. My version says:
“To try, there is no.”
😜
Reality always wins in the end.
Unfortunately trillions are wasted and countless suffering caused in the meantime as the reality-deniers in our ruling class impose their fantasies on us.
2+ Gw of combined cycle gas/combustion turbine sounds like it would be cheaper in the short and long run than trying to get the same amount of reliable power from renewables. Another advantage is far less materials needed and incredibly less visual blight than with renewables.
How would you go about building 2GW of reliable renewable 24 x 7?
Using currently available technology you would have to install 2GW of gas, and it would have to be substantially rapid start, open cycle. Then you build the wind system as well and use it when the wind blows.
Of course its more expensive than building close cycle plant to cover the full 2GW.. You are building a less efficient form of gas generation, and you are building twice as much generation capacity as you need.
You’d end up with, rough numbers, at least 6GW of wind at an average capacity factor of 33% plus 2GW of open cycle gas.
In an open market environment, absent taxpayer provided incentives and government regulations to incentivize and compel wind installation, it would be a no brainer.
Use solar? Then your problem is you have to supply over 12 hours a day when there is no sun, and what you do get during the day is sharply peaked, so you still have to have the OGT.
Go batteries and never mind the cost? Doesn’t help, because now you have to have enough wind and/or solar to recharge the batteries after you use them to get through a prolonged calm. Now you don’t need just 6GW of wind faceplate to meet your 2GW demand, but probably more like 12+.
None of these companies are even considering meeting their requirements from wind and solar, Many are even finding it preferable to try and go with totally untested min-nukes rather than attempt renewables, which should tell you something about how absurd a choice renewables is.
Can it be made to work? Yes, at least in the sense that you can indeed install a hybrid system, you can have enough gas generation to meet your demand and also go ahead and install wind or solar on top of that and try to reduce your fuel consumption by using it. Will it pay for itself? Don’t believe it.
I keep asking our Nick Stokes, our main renewables advocate, who thinks it will, to put together or link to a business case showing it. There is never any answer, and I’ve never seen any such case. I don’t believe there is one. Unicorns!
Exactly! Planning on 2 GW of “reliable” power solely from renewables means ~4 GW of nameplate capacity of the total build PLUS at least 14 GW of battery storage capacity to cover the not-even-the-worst-case of just one week where the Sun is blocked by clouds and the wind isn’t blowing.
Renewable 2GW that is reliable in USA? Easy-peasy. Just build a 2GW hydroelectric dam! And for a cherry on top we may as well make it 2 for 1 by adding pumped hydro too! Done!. Finis!. What is all the fuss about?
Oh, wait. There is something called geography… and interminable environmental lawsuits… and rainfall patterns…and inundated people & property…and NGO’s trying to close dams instead of building them…NEPA…
I hate it when reality ruins my magical thinking. [Just ask Mark Jacobson]
/sarc
Why no! Whatever gave you the impression that it was important to them? They were paid (and coerced) to try to make it seem important to you.
There’s one overriding common theme running through all this ‘powering AI’ issue: computers are allowed to have what humans are denied – reliable power. People who own large computers are the new feudal lords. In the old days, feudal lords were the ones that owned land. People who don’t own large computers are now the serfs. Electricity will not be wasted on them. This isn’t going to stop at just electricity.
And the beatings will continue until moral improves.
So true . . . and where’s the discussion—in the midst of so many AGW/CAGW alarmists gnashing their teeth about a 1.5 C rise in temperature— over the waste heat that will be generated by the growing plans for massive amounts of power solely to feed AI data centers?
FWIW, a typical nuclear power plant will generate about twice its nameplate electrical power output as waste power (heat over time) dumped into the local environment. And the best fossil-fuel power power plants, those using CCGT technology, do only slightly better, on average generating about 1.0 to 1.5 times their nameplate output as waste heat dumped into the local environment.
I did an analysis back in 2022. Just coal. World wide electrical production. Energy released by burning the coal was sufficient to raise the lower 105 feet of atmosphere by 1C.
Note: All electricity ultimately enters the environment as thermal energy. 1 W s = 1 J
I don’t think so. Some electricity used to refine pure metals from ore or salt compounds (such as aluminum) and to electrolyze compounds (such a water electrolysis) is tied up in the breaking and making of atomic and molecular chemical bonds.
Specific to the phrase “enters the environment as thermal energy” that is easily falsified: just consider energy in the EM spectrum above IR and LWIR wavelengths.
X-rays, visible light, microwaves, TV signals, and radio signals can be and are generated by electricity and enter the environment in forms other than “thermal energy”.
Even if you meant to say “All electricity ultimately ends up in the environment as thermal energy” that is not true if one considers the amount of electrically-produced visible light, microwaves, TV signals and radio signals that escape Earth and pass into deep space. That is, unless one considers your term “environment” to encompass the universe.
The “green hydrogen” is still required by the latest EPA rules on new combined cycle plants. So they at least have to pay lip service to that until it is retracted.
Just wondering how many “renewable green energy” proponents that use Facebook will demonstrate the true strength of their belief by now abandoning the platform because it intends to use fossil fuels for those 2+ GW of power?
How much power will be required to mine bitcoins using AI?
Not sure if AI helps bitcoin mining, but if quantum computing could do it, it would sure consume a lot of power.
My understanding is that cryptocurrency “mining” requires just brute force computer solutions of “blockchain” algorithms that are used to verify transactions, and that AI (as we currently define it) won’t accelerate the solving of those computationally-intensive algorithms.
I admit that I could be wrong in my current understanding, as I have purposely avoided anything having to do with cryptocurrencies since about 10 years ago when I fully realized there was nothing other than electronic words backing the “value” of any and all cryptocurrencies.
And this, from Google’s AI:
“According to recent estimates, cryptocurrency mining, primarily Bitcoin, uses around 0.2% to 0.9% of the world’s electricity, with the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance estimating that Bitcoin mining alone consumes roughly 120 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, which is equivalent to a small country’s power usage.”
Also this, again from Google’s AI:
“As of March 2024, there are around 13,217 cryptocurrencies in existence. However, most of these are either inactive or have limited value, so the number of active cryptocurrencies is closer to 8,985.”
Around 9,000 separate cryptocurrencies presently available to invest in??? As the saying goes, “You pays your money, and you takes your chances”.
Who knows what the future holds?
I have a client in Montana who supports a coal-fired power plant that is dedicated solely to the energy requirements of a bitcoin foundry. So the answer to your question is A LOT.
They did not say it will, they said it could.
My pet goldfish COULD run on 30% green hydrogen.
Right?
If you say so 🙂
Well, the hydrogen in water is pretty strongly bound up and is not used in the metabolism of goldfish. Besides the mass ratio of an H2O molecule is 2 hydrogen atoms:1 oxygen atom, or 2:16, which translates to water having only 11% bound hydrogen.
Even so, inhalation of pure hydrogen is toxic to most advanced animal life forms.
So, wrong.
Story Tip, @Eric Worrall, here’s a good article on their ABC about the reality behind Australia’s progress on Net Zero, mostly it is land use changes, which seem to get better every time they are recalculated. Note also that in the next 5 years we are predicted to make twice as big a reduction in CO2 from electricity as has happened in the last 15 years. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-09/australias-climate-change-policy-problem-in-charts/104689682