If it's a stable 24x7 load it would be ideal for nuclear energy, low carbon, but slow to adapt to changes in demand.
It’s not like when you ask GPT a question, the energy grid takes a dip. No, data centers have massive power draw. They also have battery backup systems that are the primary drivers of stable power along with power inverters and all sorts of power equipment on site. The fact that we are building out more data centers means we need more power. The energy marketplace has only so much extra capacity (various forms) before it too is depleted. So, you bring on more power plants, more reactors, more solar farms, moar powah!
No, what is sad is that we have the ability to turn every roof, every window, every side wall into a power source and yet we choose not to.
(I wrote a demand response energy grid “manipulation” platform)
Staying that as a genuine question since I'm not sure how the math works out at that scale, you have to weigh that against hardware depreciation of course.
Power purchase agreements are priced differently and usually written to guarantee power at a predictable price, think of it like reserved instances and spot on the cloud. Bulk of workloads don’t care or benefit from spot pricing.
Also Modern neoclouds have captive non grid sources like gas or diesel plants for which grid demand has no impact to cost. These sources are not cheap but DC operators have not much choice as getting grid capacity takes years . Even gas turbines are difficult to procure these days so we hear of funky sources like jet engines.
Solving fusion could usher in the golden age that atomic power failed to produce
Call me ignorant, but I’d rather we focus on stuff like increasing photovoltaic cell efficiency (and possibly cost-efficiency) by the 40%-60% we’re leaving on the table keeping them fully loaded and cooking.
Simple physics upgrades, like rotating cones, or lines of panels to swap with each other in Arizona-parking-lot conditions, can take us further, faster, and cheaper.
Nuclear is only safe after and during spending a bunch of money to keep it that way.
That makes me uncomfortable, because we’ve never had more instability in my lifetime, as far as “wildly important things not being addressed”.
If you want to see where energy will come from in a deregulated environment, look at Texas. New grid capacity there is solar and batteries. Even gas isn't being installed much; the Texas state government put down $7.2B to fund more gas capacity yet this money has been mostly spurned, I think < $400M has been taken. New nuclear is completely out of the picture there.
Neither fission nor fusion are going to put any juice on the grid before the AI bubble resolves, and then the financial calculations will be totally different.
The idea that nuclearphobia is to blame is a defensive fantasy.
could be worse, could be all that effort, energy, talent and now nuclear waste to produce infinite pictures of shrimp jesus
.... oh crap
For some reason TVA keeps building new nuclear sites, never commissioning them, and then selling them at huge losses to private investors (or destroying them). Recently TVA got approval for µfission reactors to be installed... here we go again.
[•] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bellefonte_Nuclear_Plant> $4B, estimated loss
Suggested (hopefully not Enron-esque) reading: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Failure-Rise-Fall-American/dp/0...
AI compute will go to places where energy is cheap
source: Chile National Data Centers Plan | 2024-2030 MinCiencia Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge, and Innovation
note - this is "promoting the sustainable growth of the data center industry" .. you know it has to be sustainable
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for those plans. But it will take 5 to 10 years while China has a 15 year headstart.
You can't print energy and you can't print infra. Nine women can't have a baby in a month.
danmaz74•2h ago
rmoriz•2h ago
sigwinch•2h ago
rmoriz•1h ago
solarengineer•1h ago
I have found this page on nuclear waste to be informative https://world-nuclear.org/nuclear-essentials/what-is-nuclear...
Some points: - The generation of electricity from a typical 1,000-megawatt nuclear power station, which would supply the needs of more than a million people, produces only three cubic metres of vitrified high-level waste per year, if the used fuel is recycled. In comparison, a 1,000-megawatt coal-fired power station produces approximately 300,000 tonnes of ash and more than 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, every year.
Important condition being "if the used fuel is recycled".
To quote from the article on recycling:
"Although some countries, most notably the USA, treat used nuclear fuel as waste, most of the material in used fuel can be recycled. Approximately 97% – the vast majority (~94%) being uranium – of it could be used as fuel in certain types of reactor. Recycling has, to date, mostly been focused on the extraction of plutonium and uranium, as these elements can be reused in conventional reactors. This separated plutonium and uranium can subsequently be mixed with fresh uranium and made into new fuel rods.
Countries such as France, Japan, Germany, Belgium and Russia have all used plutonium recycling to generate electricity, whilst also reducing the radiological footprint of their waste. Some of the by-products (approximately 4%), mainly the fission products, will still require disposal in a repository and are immobilized by mixing them with glass, through a process called vitrification."
There are various informative videos on Youtube that cover vitrification, where the remaining waste is melted with glass-forming materials at a high temperature, and the resulting matter can be safely stored in steel vats. In comparison to carbon from coal, the volume is miniscule.
Filligree•1h ago
Radiation from nuclear waste is constrained to steel casks in cooling ponds, and the waste can be reprocessed for use in breeder reactors instead of letting it sit.
rmoriz•59m ago
hagbard_c•1h ago
Nuclear 'waste' is just waiting to become new nuclear 'fuel' in a fast neutron or 'breeder' reactor. Treated this way the volume of nuclear waste can be reduced by 90% while the remaining highly radioactive waste only needs to be stored for some hundreds of years instead of thousands due to its much shorter half life. It also extends the viability of nuclear fission (as opposed to fusion) by a factor of 10 by producing new fissionable material.
pfdietz•52m ago
m4ck_•1h ago
rmoriz•57m ago
rmoriz•1h ago
cr125rider•1h ago
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/27/ai-gives-coal-plant...