61–70 of 308 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Alaska has a speed of light problem.
Doesn't seem especially relevant for LLMs. Especially not for training, but even for inference.
Oh good. Then Google will be "clean", while countless homes will be getting their power from coal or whatever instead of this nuclear plant.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Calling data centers “job creating infrastructure” seems like a bit of an oxymoron tbh
The company my brother works for (fairly small) is involved in the construction and maintenance of the electrical side of the data grid. Apparently they need to hire at least 20 people a month for the foreseeable future to keep up with demand, as they're already booked out with projects into 2030 or something like that. Overall, it's not exactly a ton of jobs for how much money is going into them, but it isn't nothin…
I’m not disputing that data center buildouts will have some localized job creation, but the net effect of all those data centers will be overwhelmingly negative on employment if everything the AI companies are saying is true
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Google is buying the output because they are increasing demand by half a nuclear power plant's worth of power. I actually think it's pretty reasonable to pass a law demanding they build an entire nuclear power plant here.
If I build a house and the demand goes up I don't have to build the solar panels (and everything else involved) to cover it, I pay the utility company to build that based on how much I'm needing to use. Well, normally I pay for whatever they think will make them the most money to deliver that much electricity - Google is specifically paying to make sure the utility company sees it as increased demand and revenue for…
Far north cool places seem logical for data centers. Not Texas and Arizona. Why?
Far north cool places seem logical for data centers. Not Texas and Arizona. Why?
When Finland contracted with France to build their latest reactor, they wisely had a fixed price contract where the French company would pay for const overruns. At groundbreaking in 2005, they planned for a 2009 completion. In 2016 it bankrupted Areva, with the French government owned EDG saving parts of the company crucial to the nation. It wasn't completed u tip 2023:
https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/2...
When the US last decided to build nuclear, Westinghouse AP1000s, two in South Carolina and two in Georgia, it resulted in the bankruptcy on Westinghouse, putting all of Toshiba, its owner, at risk:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/westinghouses-bankruptcy-and-i...
The two South Carolina reactors were abandoned at the cost of a substantial fraction of the build cost, in the billions, and utility executives went to jail for deception about it. Georgia finished its two reactors, but only by creating some of the most expensive electricity out there today.
Storage and renewables are cheaper, faster to deploy, and work really really really well in Texas and Arizona. Despite nearly free natural gas in Texas due its state as a by-product of oil extraction, most of the new electricity grid assets in Texas are wind, storage, and solar, and that's independent third party investors making those choice in the grid to make money, as Texas has perhaps the "freest" electricity market in the United States when it comes to who is allowed to build grid assets and make money off them.
If the far north places have hydro that's already built and not being used, that makes sense for data centers. But new nuclear is not a serious technology, it exists mostly based on vibes.
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Got an example? I'm pretty sure new datacenters are still using cooling towers.
QTS is building a second campus in Chicago with closed loop https://q.com/resources/how-qts-data-centers-use-closed-loop...
> 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.
Far north cool places seem logical for data centers. Not Texas and Arizona. Why?
Unions. Northeastern states expect that you will use union labor to build your projects or they will shut you down. Pennsylvania, for example, was one of the few places to take Walmart to task for employing illegal labor. Texas and Arizona are notoriously anti-union and anti-resident/pro-corporation.