Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 52 posts

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#31

Post by teruakohatu »

myrmidon wrote: post #21

This is just PR and carbon greenwashing. The usecase of "cloud provider buys power plant to power data center" does not exist: All current power plants are completely unsuitable as single power source for a data center because uptime/reliability is way lower than what you would need; decoupling datacenters from the grid is just a losing move, which is why no credible operator is even trying. Are we gonna see more ver…

> This is just PR and carbon greenwashing.

> All current power plants are completely unsuitable as single power source for a data center

I don’t think this is a fair assessment.

For example, there is a data center being built in New Zealand that will be grid connected but the power will be supplied from a huge hydro dam that has to have generators shutdown if the load is not great enough. Its primarily purpose is to power an aluminium smelter and there is not enough transmission capacity to transfer all the electricity elsewhere.

Another counter example is home solar. If a house is grid connected it’s still producing green energy even if it still sips gas generation at night.

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#32

Post by myrmidon »

preisschild wrote: post #27
myrmidon wrote: post #21

This is just PR and carbon greenwashing. The usecase of "cloud provider buys power plant to power data center" does not exist: All current power plants are completely unsuitable as single power source for a data center because uptime/reliability is way lower than what you would need; decoupling datacenters from the grid is just a losing move, which is why no credible operator is even trying. Are we gonna see more ver…

Tbf nuclear power plants have a capacity factor of more than 90%. Sure you still need a backup (like the grid), but 90% of the time not having to use the grid is a huge amount. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity

Yes, but even 90% is completely insufficient for a datacenter, and you would have to substitute power for days or weeks (during refueling/maintenance), which makes backup systems unsuitable for the task.

Taking this approach would also basically lock your datacenter power use to the exact output power of the reactor, preventing you from scaling either side of the setup freely.

I think looking at moves like this from a power perspective is wrong, and I strongly believe that this is just minimum effort hedging against increasing CO2 costs (both monetary and reputational), i.e. greenwashing.

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#33

Post by lwo32k »

rollcat wrote: post #30
Propelloni wrote: post #3

From TFA > Meta and its Big Tech peers have fallen head over heels for nuclear power lately. Meta announced earlier this year that it was soliciting proposals for new nuclear power plants that would generate between 1 and 4 gigawatts of power. Today, the company said it has received over 50 qualified submissions for sites in more than 20 states. I would like to see one of those submissions. Is Meta getting into the u…

Just to give everyone some perspective, my guesstimated peak power usage of common household appliances: an electric stove - 5kW; a fridge - 500W; washing machine - 500W; 55" TV - 120W; a laptop - 65W; gaming PC - 600W. If you'd run all of these simultaneously, that'd be around 7kW. So, in the most unrealistic scenario, a 1GW power plant could power 140.000 households. The grid may have to handle those kinds of peaks…

Too add more perspective

They generate cash at a ridiculously insane rate (literally few bucks off everyone connected to the internet growing by 10-15 cents every quarter).

What happens when you can produce cash faster than you can cultivate capacities to use it, and Wall St is constantly pushing you do something with it?

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#34

Post by jankeymeulen »

myrmidon wrote: post #21

This is just PR and carbon greenwashing. The usecase of "cloud provider buys power plant to power data center" does not exist: All current power plants are completely unsuitable as single power source for a data center because uptime/reliability is way lower than what you would need; decoupling datacenters from the grid is just a losing move, which is why no credible operator is even trying. Are we gonna see more ver…

Depends on the use case. Dedicated datacenters for ML training can trade off power reliability vs. other factors like cost or carbon emissions.

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#35

Post by hildolfr »

preisschild wrote: post #29
chrischen wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Breaking things was exactly why nuclear power even got started.

That's wrong. Nuclear power plants were started after the "breaking things" part.

Right, that's why public sentiment around nuclear was and has been so hard fought, because it had never failed in a catastrophic manner in history.

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#36

Post by myrmidon »

teruakohatu wrote: post #31
myrmidon wrote: post #21

This is just PR and carbon greenwashing. The usecase of "cloud provider buys power plant to power data center" does not exist: All current power plants are completely unsuitable as single power source for a data center because uptime/reliability is way lower than what you would need; decoupling datacenters from the grid is just a losing move, which is why no credible operator is even trying. Are we gonna see more ver…

> This is just PR and carbon greenwashing. > All current power plants are completely unsuitable as single power source for a data center I don’t think this is a fair assessment. For example, there is a data center being built in New Zealand that will be grid connected but the power will be supplied from a huge hydro dam that has to have generators shutdown if the load is not great enough. Its primarily purpose is to…

I call this greenwashing because Meta throws minor amounts of money at an existing plant, then basically claims all the credit for all the CO2-less electricity that is produced there.

This is IMO just a CO2 accounting trick, basically, and does not really achieve anything, because all that happens is that the average electricity user in that area gets a bit "dirtier" (on paper) while Meta becomes "zero emission" (on paper), meanwhile nothing actually changed.

Don't get me wrong, this is not harmful, but building new emission free power or replacing fossil plants is much more useful than paying some cash to basically shift blame around.

> For example, there is a data center being built in New Zealand that will be grid connected but the power will be supplied from a huge hydro dam

Sure-- but you still really want that grid connection, both to sell power when you have too much and also to buy power when the turbines are being maintained or water is running low. My point here is just that it almost never really makes sense to couple plant and datacenter directly and skip the grid connection.

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#37

Post by jillesvangurp »

> The social media company will buy all the “clean energy attributes” of Constellation Energy’s Clinton Clean Energy Center, a 1.1 gigawatt nuclear power plant in central Illinois, starting in June 2027.

Creative bookkeeping is a thing when it comes to carbon neutrality. They are still using electrons produced with gas power. But others in a place where Meta doesn't require much power get to use nuclear power now.

It's interesting that they feel like they need to spend on carbon offsets. But I don't think carbon offsets are a long term solution. The core issue for companies like Meta is that they need to get their hands on large amounts of preferably clean power.

Another interesting thing here of course is that this nuclear plant is hopelessly dependent on subsidies to stay operational. That's quite common with aging nuclear plants. It's apparently a deeply unprofitable business to be in. There's no such thing as a profitable nuclear plant that doesn't get heavily subsidized. Plenty of people in the nuclear sector are getting rich but very few under their own power (pun intended).

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#38

Post by myrmidon »

jankeymeulen wrote: post #34
myrmidon wrote: post #21

This is just PR and carbon greenwashing. The usecase of "cloud provider buys power plant to power data center" does not exist: All current power plants are completely unsuitable as single power source for a data center because uptime/reliability is way lower than what you would need; decoupling datacenters from the grid is just a losing move, which is why no credible operator is even trying. Are we gonna see more ver…

Depends on the use case. Dedicated datacenters for ML training can trade off power reliability vs. other factors like cost or carbon emissions.

You absolutely could do that if you wanted to basically burn money.

Datacenters and especially ML training hardware is highly capital intensive and depreciates at basically constant rate regardless of utilization.

I see currently no scenario where you wwould be willing to idle this expensive infrastructure just to save pennies on the dollar on a grid connection; carbon credits would have to be nonsensically expensive for this to happen.

Re: Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

#39

Post by AdamN »

jankeymeulen wrote: post #34
myrmidon wrote: post #21

This is just PR and carbon greenwashing. The usecase of "cloud provider buys power plant to power data center" does not exist: All current power plants are completely unsuitable as single power source for a data center because uptime/reliability is way lower than what you would need; decoupling datacenters from the grid is just a losing move, which is why no credible operator is even trying. Are we gonna see more ver…

Depends on the use case. Dedicated datacenters for ML training can trade off power reliability vs. other factors like cost or carbon emissions.

A power plant can be turned off for a month at a time for major maintenance.
Post reply on HN