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DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

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Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#51

Post by shepherdjerred »

ipdashc wrote: post #48
abtinf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a data center on unreliable energy would be shockingly stupid. And unreliable energy sources routinely exclude the wildly uneconomical costs and environmental impact it would take to make them reliable.

> Running a data center on unreliable energy would be shockingly stupid. For the right kind of workloads and at sufficient scale, I wonder if this is actually true. (It probably is, but it's fun to hypothesize.) I'm assuming the workloads are mostly AI-related. AI training presumably isn't super time-sensitive, so could you just pause it while it's cloudy? AI inference, at least for language models, presumably isn't…

One big problem is you have a bunch of expensive GPUs sitting around doing nothing during these outages

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#52

Post by toast0 »

ipdashc wrote: post #48
abtinf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a data center on unreliable energy would be shockingly stupid. And unreliable energy sources routinely exclude the wildly uneconomical costs and environmental impact it would take to make them reliable.

> Running a data center on unreliable energy would be shockingly stupid. For the right kind of workloads and at sufficient scale, I wonder if this is actually true. (It probably is, but it's fun to hypothesize.) I'm assuming the workloads are mostly AI-related. AI training presumably isn't super time-sensitive, so could you just pause it while it's cloudy? AI inference, at least for language models, presumably isn't…

> So if one region is currently cloudy... spin it down and transfer load to a different region, where it's sunny? It's kind of like the "wide area grid" concept without actually needing to run power lines.

> Yes, I know that in reality the capex of building and equipping a whole DC means you'll want to run it 24/7, but it is fun to think about ways you could take advantage of low cost energy.

There's some balance between maximizing capex, business continuity planning, room for growth, and natural peak and trough throughout the day.

You probably don't really want all your DCs maxxed out at the daily peak. Then you have no spare capacity for when you've lost N DCs on you biggest day of the year. N might typically be one, but if you have many DCs, you probably want to plan for two or three down.

Anyway, so on a normal day, when all your DCs are running, you do likely have some flexibility on where tasks run/where traffic lands. It makes sense to move traffic where it costs less to serve, within some reasonable bounds of service degradation. Even if electricity prices are the same, you might move traffic where the ambient temperature is lower, as that would reduce energy used for cooling and with it the energy bill.

You might have some non-interactive, non-time sensitive background jobs that could fill up spare DC capacity... but maybe it's worth putting a dollar amount on those --- if it's sunny and windy and energy is cheap, go ahead ... when it's cloudy and still and energy is expensive, some jobs may need to be descheduled.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#53

Post by toast0 »

bawolff wrote: post #39
epistasis wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most parts of the country, solar plus batteries to get through 24 hours will be cheaper than $110/MWh.

Do you have a source for that, when i googled it came up closer to $200/MWh for new york, but that was from older sources. The only thing i saw approaching this price point was if you were somewhere like las vegas. I also think you would need more than 24 hours battery. You have to prepare for freak weather events that reduce system capacity. I also wonder what time horizon we are talking. solar and batteries presuma…

> I also think you would need more than 24 hours battery. You have to prepare for freak weather events that reduce system capacity.

In general, yes. Not really in the context of utility generation for a DC, though. A DC should have onsite backup generation, at least to supply critical loads. If your contracted utility PV + storage runs out, and there's no spare grid capacity available (or it's too expensive) you can switch to onsite power for the duration. The capex for backup power is already required, so you're just looking at additional spending for fuel, maybe maintenance if the situation requires enough hours on backup.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#55

Post by DeathArrow »

>That’s cheaper than a brand-new nuclear power plant would cost, but it’s a hefty premium over wind, solar, and geothermal, according to a comparison of energy costs from Lazard.

Nuclear is more expensive because there are extensive regulations. "Green" energy not only does not face so many regulations but it benefits from incentives.

Also, when comparing nuclear with "green" energy, most studies don't take into account the costs of energy storage.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#57

Post by throwup238 »

jazzyjackson wrote: post #45
dreamcompiler wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At around $110/MWh, according to the article. This is about 50% higher than what utility-scale PV or wind would cost. Guess they're using OpenAI accounting.

> utility-scale PV or wind would cost Are you comparing cost against what electricity currently costs or what it would cost to add capacity? I feel like Microsoft is not acting on hype here, they're going to pay a premium just because it's cool to refire a nuclear plant? Surely they've done the math to decide the feasibility of building out a few acres of solar panels.

There could also be incentives beyond the loan or political pressure we’re not privy to. Such pressure is part of the reason Boeing ended up acquiring McDonnell Douglass even though it wasn’t exactly the financial best move for Boeing. If the US government is serious about restarting its nuclear industry then this is a small first step to build up the skills for building new reactors or refurbishing old ones.

It’s not really that farfetched, either. If the government expects a conflict in the next few decades, solar build out might become much more expensive or impossible since our domestic production might not be enough to support NATO’s growth.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#58

Post by fodkodrasz »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #17
pseudalopex wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft committed to purchase the plant's capacity for 20 years. And US electricity demand grew very slowly from 2005 to 2020. It is growing rapidly now.

At around $110/MWh, according to the article. This is about 50% higher than what utility-scale PV or wind would cost. Guess they're using OpenAI accounting.

You ignore the fact that these datacenters also operate at night and in windless times.

PV did get spectacularly cheaper, but is not a panacea.

Nuclear is great fit for constant load, for example a cloud datacenter where relatively constant utilization is also a business goal and multiple incentives are in place to promote this. (eg. spot pricing to move part of the load off from peaks)

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#59

Post by fodkodrasz »

ipdashc wrote: post #48
abtinf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a data center on unreliable energy would be shockingly stupid. And unreliable energy sources routinely exclude the wildly uneconomical costs and environmental impact it would take to make them reliable.

> Running a data center on unreliable energy would be shockingly stupid. For the right kind of workloads and at sufficient scale, I wonder if this is actually true. (It probably is, but it's fun to hypothesize.) I'm assuming the workloads are mostly AI-related. AI training presumably isn't super time-sensitive, so could you just pause it while it's cloudy? AI inference, at least for language models, presumably isn't…

> AI training presumably isn't super time-sensitive, so could you just pause it while it's cloudy?

or pause it when "organic traffic" has a peak demand, and resume in off-peak hours, so that the nuclear powerplant can operate efficiently without too much change in its output.

Re: DOE gives Microsoft partner $1B loan to restart Three Mile Island reactor

#60

Post by lm28469 »

DeathArrow wrote: post #55

>That’s cheaper than a brand-new nuclear power plant would cost, but it’s a hefty premium over wind, solar, and geothermal, according to a comparison of energy costs from Lazard. Nuclear is more expensive because there are extensive regulations. "Green" energy not only does not face so many regulations but it benefits from incentives. Also, when comparing nuclear with "green" energy, most studies don't take into acco…

Studies also don't take into account that by subsidizing solar you're subsidizing an industry that's already subsidized by the Chinese gov, it's cool in the short term but we're making the same mistake we've been making for the last 50 years

Home grown nuclear programs will always be better than solar propped up by foreign entities.

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