The AI industry is desperate for data centre power anywhere it can get it. They can’t get gas turbines without years of delay. Even the repurposed jet engine gas turbines they were really hoping wo…
  • fullsquare@awful.systemsEnglish
    5·
    23 hours ago

    have you seen how much time it takes to built single NPP? openai will be a smoking crater well before site for the first plant will get selected. then you have a backlog for turbines and reactors

    • David Gerard@awful.systemsOPMEnglish
      5·
      5 hours ago

      That’s a great question! If it’s for an AI power station, it turns out that 3.6 roentgen is a nutritional requirement.

      Is there anything else I can help you with?

      • Health benefits of radioactive glue on pizza
      • Why South Memphis needs a nuclear reactor built in 6 months
      • Why you need an anime waifu who glows in the dark
    • rook@awful.systemsEnglish
      5·
      23 hours ago

      Given the state of renewables and energy storage, this feels a lot like the final opportunity for nuclear power in its current state to actually do anything at all, and the “move fast and break things” crowd have no idea about building physical things more complex than a datacentre which honestly, isn’t that challenging in comparison.

      openai will be a smoking crater well before site for the first plant will get selected

      Other things that might not last that long include the government of the country in which you’re trying to build massive piece of infrastructure that represents a significant ongoing maintenance burden and risk.

      • fullsquare@awful.systemsEnglish
        3·
        11 hours ago

        renewable generation, i’m with you, but i’m not sold on storage. i’m not even sure if there’s enough lithium for grid batteries to seriously matter, so it might need to use something else. the boring, working option (geographically limited) is of course pumped storage hydro, but other than that, i think that the right way to do things is to use energy when it’s made, not when it’s needed. in particular, water heaters have tiny duty cycle and hot water just sits there, which means you could, in principle, make it so that water heaters soak up all, or at least as much as practical, of excess power, wherever it is available

        some countries do fund nuclear power as a kind of strategic energy independence hedge* no matter costs, most prominently france and russia, and to some degree india and a couple of others

        *also for military use

        • swlabr@awful.systemsEnglish
          4·
          5 hours ago

          i hear sodium batteries are emerging as an alternative to lithium, but note that I also don’t know shit about this domain