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Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

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Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#81

Post by red75prime »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #33
ericmay wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somehow folks want this little problem of climate change to go away without any change in their own behaviors. Somehow corporations who sell them goods will just magically "be green" while flying around the world and drinking out of plastic bottles and subscribing to the latest fast-fashion website. But then when the corporations say "yes we should be green" that's a problem too. You just can't please some people, th…

Don't forget that they buy countless things from China, who is by a very large margin the largest polluter in the world.

Do you know how South Australia solved a problem of the Whyalla Steelworks when transitioning to 100% renewable electricity? They excluded on-site generation of the plant from the statistics. "Solarization" of the plant hadn't worked out economically. Continuous manufacturing processes have big problems with intermittent energy sources.

China is building tens of nuclear power plants though.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#82

Post by typ »

I am not against AI data centers. But it's a good thing that the electricity infrastructure expenditures for AI data centers' consumption are paid by the companies making money from AI training and inference, rather than being paid by all taxpayers collectively.

Not sure if this particular project is also sponsored by taxpayers' money or not, though.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#83

Post by trhway »

epistasis wrote: post #69
wxw wrote: post #43

> As part of the deal, Google signed a 22-year contract with Finnish utility Fortum to buy up to 50% of the output from the Loviisa nuclear power plant. > Finland has emerged as an attractive location for data centres because of its cool climate, plentiful low-carbon electricity and relatively uncongested power grid.

I hope the data center's waste heat can be used for some form of district heating! Finland has pretty great municipal infrastructure, but I don't know enough about its heating systems.

>the data center's waste heat

One can imagine the saunas the guys will have there :)

On the main point - there are persistent leaks/rumors that one of the main points of the Trump's envoys (Kushner and Witkoff) to Putin is building data centers in Karelia ( the Russian side of Finland border) - the same reasons of cheap electricity and plentiful of cool water.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#84

Post by ETH_start »

typ wrote: post #82

I am not against AI data centers. But it's a good thing that the electricity infrastructure expenditures for AI data centers' consumption are paid by the companies making money from AI training and inference, rather than being paid by all taxpayers collectively. Not sure if this particular project is also sponsored by taxpayers' money or not, though.

Should this apply only to AI compute facilities or all industries?

I have no real evidence for this but I think a general principle of good governance is that the policy is agnostic to the industries which it affects and robust under any set of conditions, so for instance, the price that electric utilities charge should be enough to pay for expansions, either prospectively or retroactively (via loans secured before the construction, taken out against projected future revenue), rather than subsidizing the expansion with taxes collected by industries that won't be using the electricity, or exercising discretionary control over which types of industrial expansion are accommodated through investments in expanding the energy infrastructure.

Huge expansions of energy production have occurred in the past to meet growing demand for energy from then-emerging industries. And I'm not aware of any past campaigns to stop the various industries that needed energy on account of the allegation that their increase in energy usage would burden other sectors of society. I have concern that the treatment of AI compute facilities is based on public opinion rather than rule of law and consistent protection of private property rights.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#85

Post by vermarish »

nomilk wrote: post #79

1. Humans use AI 2. AI requires power^ 3. AI companies purchase/produce power 4. Humans complain that AI uses power (but continue to use AI) ^Same for water This is a silly 'news cycle' witch hunt that no economist takes even mildly seriously.

For over a decade, Google's been wearing the environmentally-friendly / carbon-neutral label as part of their public-facing brand values. It's definitely been eating into their CapEx then, and this isn't much different.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#86

Post by joshspankit »

typ wrote: post #82

I am not against AI data centers. But it's a good thing that the electricity infrastructure expenditures for AI data centers' consumption are paid by the companies making money from AI training and inference, rather than being paid by all taxpayers collectively. Not sure if this particular project is also sponsored by taxpayers' money or not, though.

I would go even further to say if we can get zero taxpayer dollars in funding, fair and equitable land costs, infrastructure paid for by the companies, and solid ecological plans that are leveraged on threat of removal (not fines), they could be a net good where they are built

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#87

Post by luqtas »

epistasis wrote: post #69
wxw wrote: post #43

> As part of the deal, Google signed a 22-year contract with Finnish utility Fortum to buy up to 50% of the output from the Loviisa nuclear power plant. > Finland has emerged as an attractive location for data centres because of its cool climate, plentiful low-carbon electricity and relatively uncongested power grid.

I hope the data center's waste heat can be used for some form of district heating! Finland has pretty great municipal infrastructure, but I don't know enough about its heating systems.

there are some papers about communal gardens heated by data centers... since they don't produce as much there, hope it also paves the way for developing indoor agriculture

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#88

Post by prawn »

morninglight wrote: post #13

Does this mean that no U.S. privacy oriented data will be stored in Finland. No traceable HIPAA data or financial data and no national security data. ... or is it stored in Finland but encoded.

Not sure of their business split, but maybe it makes financial sense purely supporting their European customers.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#89

Post by gpt5 »

augment_me wrote: post #21
api wrote: post #2

Far north cool places seem logical for data centers. Not Texas and Arizona. Why?

Southern states have more republicans so it's easier to sell public land or draw this kind of contracts without a massive community backlash

Not everything is partisan, and land is only a small factor in where to decide to place a data centers. The top 4 out of 5 states with the most data centers are blue states.

The reason Texas is experiencing a boom in data centers is friendlier power grid policies to data centers (similar to why Google is building in Finland), in combination with (relatively small) tax incentives.

Re: Google will buy half the electricity from one of Finland's nuclear power plants

#90

Post by bawolff »

api wrote: post #2

Far north cool places seem logical for data centers. Not Texas and Arizona. Why?

Traditionally you cared alot about internet connectivity and latency to your customer base. I imagine Texas comes out a lot better on that front.

That probably matters a lot less for AI.

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