Monday, April 1st 2024
US Government Wants Nuclear Plants to Offload AI Data Center Expansion
The expansion of AI technology affects not only the production and demand for graphics cards but also the electricity grid that powers them. Data centers hosting thousands of GPUs are becoming more common, and the industry has been building new facilities for GPU-enhanced servers to serve the need for more AI. However, these powerful GPUs often consume over 500 Watts per single card, and NVIDIA's latest Blackwell B200 GPU has a TGP of 1000 Watts or a single kilowatt. These kilowatt GPUs will be present in data centers with 10s of thousands of cards, resulting in multi-megawatt facilities. To combat the load on the national electricity grid, US President Joe Biden's administration has been discussing with big tech to re-evaluate their power sources, possibly using smaller nuclear plants. According to an Axios interview with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, she has noted that "AI itself isn't a problem because AI could help to solve the problem." However, the problem is the load-bearing of the national electricity grid, which can't sustain the rapid expansion of the AI data centers.
The Department of Energy (DOE) has been reportedly talking with firms, most notably hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to start considering nuclear fusion and fission power plants to satisfy the need for AI expansion. We have already discussed the plan by Microsoft to embed a nuclear reactor near its data center facility and help manage the load of thousands of GPUs running AI training/inference. However, this time, it is not just Microsoft. Other tech giants are reportedly thinking about nuclear as well. They all need to offload their AI expansion from the US national power grid and develop a nuclear solution. Nuclear power is a mere 20% of the US power sourcing, and DOE is currently financing a Holtec Palisades 800-MW electric nuclear generating station with $1.52 billion in funds for restoration and resumption of service. Microsoft is investing in a Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) microreactor energy strategy, which could be an example for other big tech companies to follow.
Source:
Axios
The Department of Energy (DOE) has been reportedly talking with firms, most notably hyperscalers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to start considering nuclear fusion and fission power plants to satisfy the need for AI expansion. We have already discussed the plan by Microsoft to embed a nuclear reactor near its data center facility and help manage the load of thousands of GPUs running AI training/inference. However, this time, it is not just Microsoft. Other tech giants are reportedly thinking about nuclear as well. They all need to offload their AI expansion from the US national power grid and develop a nuclear solution. Nuclear power is a mere 20% of the US power sourcing, and DOE is currently financing a Holtec Palisades 800-MW electric nuclear generating station with $1.52 billion in funds for restoration and resumption of service. Microsoft is investing in a Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) microreactor energy strategy, which could be an example for other big tech companies to follow.
98 Comments on US Government Wants Nuclear Plants to Offload AI Data Center Expansion
Nuclear fulfills the same purpose as coal (and a lot of natural gas power plants that replace them) did which is to serve as the base production capacity, the peaks are served with renewables and natural gas.
The true issue is that its economically non-viable to ramp a nuclear plant. All nuclear plants have fixed-lifetimes for safety purposes, every minute the plant is "idle", is another minute of permanently lost income for the plant operators.
So... yes you're right, but for the wrong reasons. Today's plants absolutely will ramp up / ramp down if requested. But they don't want to. Whatever corporation makes these nuclear plants will want to make money.Renewables have the same economic issues. All renewables have a fixed lifespan (hydro-dams must be replaced eventually, solar loses efficacy as it ages, wind turbines eventually fail). So renewables economically speaking "want to always be running".
Natural Gas is the correct technology for peaking. Natural Gas plants are very cheap, but the fuel is expensive. So "turning off the plant" saves a ton of money. (In contrast, renewables are high CapEx / low running costs, so "turning off the Solar Panel" is possible, but makes the "payback" time take much longer).
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Renewables also have other restrictions. Hydro must follow water-rights in many parts of the country (its dual-master. Either Hydro is saving water or its saving energy, its hard to do both). Wind comes and goes with the wind, and Solar comes and goes with the sun. So as a "baseload" generator, renewables leave much to be desired.
Nuclear is 100% going all the time (or at least, the builders of the plants want nuclear to be working 100%). Because of the constant output, nuclear is one of the best baseload generators possible.
Most renewables are at the mercy of the sun, wind, or sea, Nuclear is not and could be run all the time, just a shame it got demonised so much and stupid countires got rid of most of them and went back to awful polluting fossil generation.
"The first of Form’s long-duration grid battery systems — a 150-megawatt-hour pilot project in Minnesota — is expected to go online later this year. Two larger 1000-megawatt-hour systems are slated for 2025, and a third in New York in 2026."
"Form reports a total direct investment of up to $760 million in the Weirton Form factory site. The factory anticipates producing 500 megawatts of batteries annually when in full operation."
Form Energy begins manufacturing long-duration, utility-scale batteries | 90.5 WESA
and
more an 'issue' with the sudden reversal of policy. Why this reason, why now?
Apologies for being 'political' but, it is history:
Bush and Obama (administrations) 'killed off' the 'small self-contained'/modular nuclear power generator.
Forget where (precisely), but there are (DoE, etc.) records for a small nuclear power generator being licensed for deployment in Alaska.
Long story short: It was wrapped up in red tape for decades, with both 'left and right' "administrations" futzing with the project.
edit: A reference point, from 2005
www.nytimes.com/2005/02/03/business/alaska-town-seeks-reactor-to-cut-costs-of-electricity.html
Oh. That's interesting...
Doing a quick interenet search, shows there's recent renewed interests in AK, USA for small nuclear power deployment.
Flexible Operation of Nuclear Power Plants Ramps Up (powermag.com)
Which is faster than a new natural gas plant (38MW/min).
Not that this feature would ever be used in large amounts (or should be used) by the nuclear power plan, because of economics. You really want to keep the nuclear power plant at 100% most of the time.Depends on the installation.
Any Hydro plant on the Colorado River is bound by law to release a certain amount of water. It doesn't matter if "power isn't needed today", the water will] be released, because those Western-states have long-standing agreements on how much water flows.
This is a big deal because the mighty Colorado River is oversubscribed (the river no longer runs to the ocean, and hasn't run to the ocean for decades). So the only way all the towns downstream get the water is if all the Hydro-plants on the river release the legally-obligated water.
No one is going to install pumps on a Colorado River Hydro Plant, there's just not enough water. You'll break long-standing water-rights / water-management laws that go back decades if you do that.
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Not everywhere has that problem. But... the big Hoover Dam is a great example of a Hydro installation that serves the "Water Management" master, instead of the "Energy Management" master.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste
We live now, but we do have offspring and generations to come, just saying......:fear:
It may be a more environmental friendly alternative for fossil fuels on short term, but just because of ....... AI?
Skynet just has to have patience :roll: , no need to eliminate the human factor mankind is selfdestructive :D.
I'm not knowledgeable on this subject, just concerned prove me wrong.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)
Typically, a hydro station is on (generating), or off or running in condense mode. In condense mode the generator is driven like a motor with power from the grid (synchronous condenser) and air is used to depress the water level, so the turbine is spinning in air. Then they adjust the field to supply VARs to the grid for stabilization. Most of North America is part of the BES (bulk electricity system).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_power_transmission_gridDepends on where you live, I think France is over 70%, but economics and availability dictate what is used. If you live somewhere where the weather can get cold or very hot, you want a good mix of large reliable producers............think what happened to Texas a few years ago.
Tl;Dr: IOW Wind in it's current form is not a renewable. The wind turbines themselves are the consumable. When they reach EOL is just a very expensive waste problem no one quite knows what to do with? E.g. Send to landfills? burn them? Attempt to repurpose/up cycle?
Modern wind turbines last for decades and basically everything is recyclable, unlike nuclear waste. The discussion gets funny when bird deaths are taken as an argument, especially after we have extinguished countless birds either by destroying their habitats or by hunting them directly as a sport.
It makes absolutely no sense not to support the creation of wind and solar farms to take advantage of vast, deserted areas.
Land wise they seem to stock pile in west Texas hehe
The Real Reason America Has Turned Its Back On Wind Power Energy - YouTube
Offshore Wind in Crisis! What Can We Learn? - YouTube
And here in the US:
Speaking of the grid, whatever happened to "Build Back Better"?
The money was eventually allocated for things like the grid but where are the results of it?
I haven't seen anything around here to that end.....
Build Back Better Act - Wikipedia
This is a problem everyone, everywhere faces and needs to ask about, not just here.
Things like this will pop up no matter where you are in the world and that's just the fact of it.
It's a really complicated mess and it shows.
2021> Siemens Gamesa pioneers wind circularity: launch of world’s first recyclable wind turbine blade for commercial use offshore
Watched field of dreams to much hehe
Along with other issues/concerns about it.
Personally I'm NOT for all this "Green" stuff like windmills, solar panels and so on but at the same time, if it's going to be done one day then it needs to be done right in the first place instead of it being a headlong rush straight to disaster which all will pay for in some way whether you'd approve or not.
While I know things will eventually change, it needs to be done "Smartly" so when it's finally implemented it actually works to serve it's purpose instead of creating stacks of headaches to go with it.
That's why I say right now things like windmills, solar panels can be used to help supplement what we get now but NOT as THE basis of power generation for all of us period.
Still too many factors against it being so, including the weather itself which you can't control anyway.