Why build a nuclear power plant with your data center if you could just get power from the grid and drive up everyone else’s price too? It’s cheaper for the data center operator.
Yes, but that’s not THEIR problem. It’s everyone’s problem and in the official country of privatize the gains and socialize the losses, that means it’s up to the taxpayer to fix it.
Because eventually the grid electricity costs too much. If you consume more than the community, then the prices will be astronomical. Then it is profitable to build a power plant. If they are generous, they could even sell some electricity to the community for a “reasonable” price.
Because eventually the grid electricity costs too much
Only a couple hundred mill a year per data center. Building a nuclear power plant costs several billion and isn’t free to operate either, so it’s not pure capex, there’s still opex involved.
If you consume more than the community, then the prices will be astronomical
Prices rise for everyone so it becomes the community’s problem as much as it becomes the data center’s problem. The US in particular has three grids, so in reality, the community is either the western US, the eastern US, or Texas.
Then it is profitable to build a power plant.
Profitable over a decade or more maybe. The data center isn’t guaranteed to be in operation for that long. You know those ~30-40k USD “graphics” cards they use? The ones that a single AI data center would likely have tens of thousands of, often even around 100k? They’re used for about 3 years usually, often less. They become obsolete in that timeframe, just unable to compete with newer products in terms of both raw performance as well as efficiency. That’s up to 3 billion dollars of GPUs every 3 years or less, per data center. Just a tiny economic downturn or people seriously realizing that this bubble is going to have to pop eventually and they’ll have to stop running these data centers.
NPPs also usually take many years to complete. It took nearly two decades for the Finns to get Olkiluoto 3 running. Data centers need to be ready in a few years because in 5 years the AI craze could be over and they’ll no longer be needed.
AI companies ain’t gonna do shit for electricity generation if they’re not forced to.
In my country, joining the grid or upgrading your circuit breaker has a one-time amperage-based fee (assuming you’re close to the substation, otherwise it gets more expensive). I propose that for companies looking to consume huge amounts of electricity, there should also be a mandatory generation capacity increase fee that could be paid out to a nearby municipal power company that then uses it to build more power plants, or to some level of local government that could then sponsor building a power plant or 10.
Edit: Whoever downvoted me must think that data center operators are going to do anything out of the good of their hearts lol
People on lemmy downvote you just for disagreeing ALL the time, even if you make (as you just did) an informed and thoughtful reply. It’s honestly just as bad as Reddit with the downvote shit
I know, I’m just too lazy to ever check it out. Usually it’s pretty obvious who’s downvoting me (it’s whoever I’m having a discussion with and their instance is .ml)
The joke of the Grok AI is how it’s generating power in one of the least cost efficient manners possible.
Musk is just burning a ton of short term capital to avoid lobbying Mississippi (fucking Mississippi, the most easy state to bend over a rail with lobbyists in the country) for a hard-line to the existing grid and some upgrades to capacity funded on the public dime.
That’s what you get to do as a trillionaire. Make stupid business decisions and then dump the turd onto your investors when they want to invest in your lucrative network of federal Pentagon contracts.
Doesn’t really matter if you have local production if it goes on the global market. One global price set by global supply and demand. What happens in the middle east drives the price up in Michigan.
You also have a ton of domestic oil. The only reason fuel prices are up in the US is because the market is global so American companies can sell it abroad.
Either issue could be solved if Trump had the balls to forbid American companies to sell oil and gas abroad. But that’s not gonna happen now is it.
Since data centers will be run by nuclear power on-site in the future they will soon have both…
Why build a nuclear power plant with your data center if you could just get power from the grid and drive up everyone else’s price too? It’s cheaper for the data center operator.
The national grid has raw physical limits that many data centers already exceed.
What do Atlanta and Virginia have access to that Silicon Valley lacks?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vogtle_Electric_Generating_Plant
Yes, but that’s not THEIR problem. It’s everyone’s problem and in the official country of privatize the gains and socialize the losses, that means it’s up to the taxpayer to fix it.
…because they will suck the grid dry.
Yes. And the taxpayers will have to fix it for them, that’s how the country works. So why would they care?
Because eventually the grid electricity costs too much. If you consume more than the community, then the prices will be astronomical. Then it is profitable to build a power plant. If they are generous, they could even sell some electricity to the community for a “reasonable” price.
Only a couple hundred mill a year per data center. Building a nuclear power plant costs several billion and isn’t free to operate either, so it’s not pure capex, there’s still opex involved.
Prices rise for everyone so it becomes the community’s problem as much as it becomes the data center’s problem. The US in particular has three grids, so in reality, the community is either the western US, the eastern US, or Texas.
Profitable over a decade or more maybe. The data center isn’t guaranteed to be in operation for that long. You know those ~30-40k USD “graphics” cards they use? The ones that a single AI data center would likely have tens of thousands of, often even around 100k? They’re used for about 3 years usually, often less. They become obsolete in that timeframe, just unable to compete with newer products in terms of both raw performance as well as efficiency. That’s up to 3 billion dollars of GPUs every 3 years or less, per data center. Just a tiny economic downturn or people seriously realizing that this bubble is going to have to pop eventually and they’ll have to stop running these data centers.
NPPs also usually take many years to complete. It took nearly two decades for the Finns to get Olkiluoto 3 running. Data centers need to be ready in a few years because in 5 years the AI craze could be over and they’ll no longer be needed.
AI companies ain’t gonna do shit for electricity generation if they’re not forced to.
In my country, joining the grid or upgrading your circuit breaker has a one-time amperage-based fee (assuming you’re close to the substation, otherwise it gets more expensive). I propose that for companies looking to consume huge amounts of electricity, there should also be a mandatory generation capacity increase fee that could be paid out to a nearby municipal power company that then uses it to build more power plants, or to some level of local government that could then sponsor building a power plant or 10.
Edit: Whoever downvoted me must think that data center operators are going to do anything out of the good of their hearts lol
People on lemmy downvote you just for disagreeing ALL the time, even if you make (as you just did) an informed and thoughtful reply. It’s honestly just as bad as Reddit with the downvote shit
The lemms are peculiar like that
Now I’m just wondering who downvoted you for a literal nothingburger comment
That is public info btw -> https://lemvotes.org/
I know, I’m just too lazy to ever check it out. Usually it’s pretty obvious who’s downvoting me (it’s whoever I’m having a discussion with and their instance is .ml)
No they won’t. Natural gas turbines baybee.
The joke of the Grok AI is how it’s generating power in one of the least cost efficient manners possible.
Musk is just burning a ton of short term capital to avoid lobbying Mississippi (fucking Mississippi, the most easy state to bend over a rail with lobbyists in the country) for a hard-line to the existing grid and some upgrades to capacity funded on the public dime.
That’s what you get to do as a trillionaire. Make stupid business decisions and then dump the turd onto your investors when they want to invest in your lucrative network of federal Pentagon contracts.
Not if Trump keeps Hormuz fucked.
Trump already won that war 20 times. So it’s probably all fine.
Our oil and refinery situation in the US is fucked, but we have a ton of domestic natural gas.
Doesn’t really matter if you have local production if it goes on the global market. One global price set by global supply and demand. What happens in the middle east drives the price up in Michigan.
It’ll cost more, but polluting our country is more important above all.
You also have a ton of domestic oil. The only reason fuel prices are up in the US is because the market is global so American companies can sell it abroad.
Either issue could be solved if Trump had the balls to forbid American companies to sell oil and gas abroad. But that’s not gonna happen now is it.