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Google to back three new nuclear projects

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Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#91

Post by nandomrumber »

ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #71
dporter wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renewable power is cheap because it also receives massive government handouts in the form of tax credits.

Still built at absolutely massive scale around the world without subsidies. With many countries phasing out their renewable subsidies because they aren’t needed anymore. Unsubsidized solar and storage is today in much of the world cheaper than coal and fossil gas. The renewable subsidies stil existing simply add fuel to the already raging fire that is renewable buildout.

What storage? Where? At what price?

Where are all these 14 day full load capable storage plants being built?

I’m not saying they aren’t, I am saying I don’t see the data.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#92

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

belorn wrote: post #81
ViewTrick1002 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do know that nuclear power has experienced negative learning by doing throughout its entire life? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014... You don’t get ”free electricity” with absolutely massive handouts to the nuclear industry. Instead renewables and storage are delivering on the ”too cheap to meter” promise.

It was promised that by now half the grid of EU should had been operated under green hydrogen. Instead we had yesterday in Sweden news the opening of a freshly new built natural gas power plant as the solution to that intermittence problem. Of course, those natural gas power plants are paid through subsidizes as grid stability is the government responsibility, and thus the bill for that natural gas is put on taxes an…

Love how the goalposts magically shifted to ”green hydrogen deployed today!!” even though many grids still don’t even reach saturation from renewables. Storage or green hydrogen is an enormous waste of money in Poland given their grid composition.

That renewable buildout leads to larger fossil emissions being wrong is trivial to verify. The UK as one example of many:

- Coal has gone from 150 TWh to zero. - Fossil gas from 175 TWh to 85 TWh. - Nuclear from 80 TWh to 40 TWh.

Massively decreasing all fossil fueled electricity production of course "extends the life" of these plants. All those plants that were shut down had their "life extended".

You can do the same for Denmark, Portugal, California, South Australia and everywhere else. First renewables offset coal followed by cutting into gas usage.

After hitting a plateau storage is now unlocking massive reductions in fossil gas usage in California:

- Gas is down 45% v '23 and 25% v '24

- Batteries up 198% v '23 and 73.4% v '24

https://bsky.app/profile/mzjacobson.bsky.social/post/3lnw3hs...

Storage is exploding globally. China installed 74 GW comprising 134 GWh of storage in 2024. Increasing their yearly installation rate by 250%. The US is looking at installing 18 GW in 2025 making up 30% of all grid additions. Well, before Trump came with a sledgehammer of insanity.

Storage delivers. For the last bit of "emergency reserves" we can run some gas turbines. First our existing fleet and then when it becomes the most pressing issue to decarbonize we can utilize the solution aviation and shipping settled on.

Or just run the gas turbines on biofuels, green hydrogen or whatever. Start collecting food waste and create biogas from it.

Doesn't really matter, we're talking single percent of total energy demand.

I love how completely insignificant issues becomes blown up to enormous proportions try to force nuclear power into the conversation.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#93

Post by jeffbee »

blitzar wrote: post #37
1980phipsi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google can’t have blackouts. So helps to have some nuclear in the energy mix.

Why not? At this point optimising their electricity cost by load balancing their compute to where electricity is cheap, free or negative on a minute by minute basis would be a sizeable cost saving. Savings that would possibly offset the hardware overprovisioning that they would need.

Yeah, I would say of the organizations in the world that care about power outages, Google would rank among those most prepared to deal with them and the least flustered when they happen. If it has been too long between power outages Google will cause one intentionally, as an exercise.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#94

Post by delusional »

muth02446 wrote: post #65

I view nuclear as a prudent diversification of energy sources: What happens if some supervolcano erupts, and because of the ashes significantly less sunlight reaches the surface of the earth. Presumably, there will also be less wind then.

Even on a dead earth the AI must consume and indescribable amount of power.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#95

Post by Propelloni »

nandomrumber wrote: post #39
bee_rider wrote: post #5

Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across i…

You’re skeptical of nuclear, a proven technology with excellent safety record, the only power generation that has a completely closed fuel life cycle, and believe in a technology we don’t have. If we (the West) had built out nuclear to satisfy our electricity needs, implementing new nuclear power tech as it improved, we could have electricity subscriptions like we have mobile / home internet planes. You’d just pay fo…

You mean like France?

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#96

Post by mmmBacon »

It took about 1GW to train Chat-GPT4. If you look at the locations in the United States (>70% of all AI is in the US), there are only ~63 geographic regions you could put a 1GW data center. As AI models are growing at ~5x per year, it seems like the infrastructure is no in place to keep the AI models growing at that rate.

As companies like Google, Meta, and others look to nuclear power (it has the highest up time of any power source), I'm wondering how localities are going to react. Are people who are local to nuclear plants just going to be OK with these gigantic corporations consuming all this power in their backyard with no benefit to them while they take all the risk and impact of that power generation? I'm also wondering how these companies are going to deal with the excess nuclear waste. Ultimately it won't be Google or Meta dealing with the waste. How do we ensure that all the nuclear waste from AI is dealt with responsibly?

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#97

Post by ttfkam »

bee_rider wrote: post #5

Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across i…

"…by being cleverer."

Like harnessing the atom for enormous amounts of 24/7 power per unit volume of fuel and not emitting CO2 while we do it? Yes! Let's do that! And work on making reprocessing more affordable, so we don't even have to mine any more fuel (at least for the next 150 years).

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#98

Post by epistasis »

perihelions wrote: post #2

Here's a better article: https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/07/google_signs_another_... > "Elementl didn't respond to questions by press time. Its public materials offer little clarity on its actual operations—aside from broad claims about providing "turn-key project development, financing and ownership solutions customized to meet our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit." > "The nuclear d…

I'm not sure if nuclear has always been a field where charlatans proliferate, but it's certainly true of the past few decades. The Summer plant in South Carolina was completely fraudulent, sending the power executives to jail for their fraud. Billions spent and nothing to show except a hole in the ground. Vogtle was slightly better in that they powered through to construction completion so that nobody cared about the deception and grift that resulted in a cost 3x that of estimates.

The startups have been bad too, with some disingenuously starting regulatory processes and then not even responding to questions or attempting to follow through.

South Koreas is the most developed nation that has had success building, and even they send people to jail for construction fraud.

There are undoubtedly many honest and earnest people trying to build new nuclear. But it's hard to tell who until after billions have been sunk and misallocated.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#99

Post by nandomrumber »

hannob wrote: post #58
nandomrumber wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re skeptical of nuclear, a proven technology with excellent safety record, the only power generation that has a completely closed fuel life cycle, and believe in a technology we don’t have. If we (the West) had built out nuclear to satisfy our electricity needs, implementing new nuclear power tech as it improved, we could have electricity subscriptions like we have mobile / home internet planes. You’d just pay fo…

> the only power generation that has a completely closed fuel life cycle What exactly are you talking about? It does not sound like it describes the way nuclear power, uranium mining, and nuclear waste storage works.

Explaine how nuclear waste is dealt with.

Detail how nuclear waste is continuously pumped in to the atmosphere. Or shredded and buried like wind turbine blades which are entirely waste with no recycling value.

Hint: it isn’t.

There’s so little of it, it’s still all predominantly stored on site at the power plants.

Highly radioactive reactive waste isn’t highly reactive for very long. And long lasting waste isn’t very reactive at all. Vitrified it’s chemically non-reactive.

Re: Google to back three new nuclear projects

#100

Post by Ylpertnodi »

sschueller wrote: post #73
muth02446 wrote: post #65

I view nuclear as a prudent diversification of energy sources: What happens if some supervolcano erupts, and because of the ashes significantly less sunlight reaches the surface of the earth. Presumably, there will also be less wind then.

Even without I think wind will become too expensive eventually to make it worth while. Especially when solar gets more efficient and cheaper. Wind has down sides like moving parts and requiring giant concrete poors. Birds strikes, noise as well as ground vibration are also issues.

>Birds strikes...are also issues.

Unless you're vegetarian, or vegan, how so?

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