I realize this headline means nothing, but there is something to nuclear power futures. I live in Northern Virginia and my recent 20 mile bike ride in Loudon county was nothing but massive datacenters and crisscrossing powerlines to support them. The western side of neighboring Prince William County is now being consumed for data centers. The Washington Post recently had an article on how the demand for electricity for these centers is getting so desperate that they are running powerlines deep into West Virginia and bringing coal plants back online to meet the demand. Estimates are that it's going to take multiple nuclear powerplants to meet future demand in just this locality.
I have very mixed feelings about this. I love the possibilities of all these datacenters and their potential, but I'm worried about the massive amount of energy they are consuming. If this is all just so much hype and marketing, then it's incredibly wasteful.
So your solution is to power these datacenters for another 1-2 decades with coal power while you wait for new nuclear plants? Because that's the realistic timeframe for any new nuclear. Vogtle 3 took 14 years to build.
Of course, any "advanced nuclear" that doesn't even have a prototype yet will take longer than that. If it will ever happen.
Don't know why you're saying "your solution" like that guy is in charge of us energy policy, but Virginia already has nuclear reactors. And Dominion has the permits and plans and facility to construct another 1500 megawatts.
> my recent 20 mile bike ride in Loudon county was nothing but massive datacenters and crisscrossing powerlines to support them. The western side of neighboring Prince William County is now being consumed for data centers.
Is this actually true or hyperbole? Ireland has the same size and population as Virginia is described as a major location for data centres, but all the data centres on the island combined take up less than one square km [0]. By comparison, Dublin Airport is 10 square km.
Sounds like Virginia needs to be two orders of magnitude more dense in DCs, or have them developed exactly in a ribbon along your route, to really dominate the landscape like that.
What does Ireland having the same size and population as Virginia have to do with my comment? Virginia is a state and I was specifically referring to Loudon and Prince William Counties, which are very tiny in proportion to the entire state of Virginia. Look up "Loudon County Data Center Alley" to understand the proportions and density of this project.
It's hyperbolic of course, but there is an ongoing NIMBY battle over the next datacenter. And it is a huge datacenter, dont get me wrong. The company bidding recently said it would convert a shitton of the land it would be given into greenspaces that yon biker could bike through. And we can be clear here too, if you can afford to bike in Loudon then you work for one of the companies directly requiring this new datacenter, so not sure why he's "conflicted" (nimbyism)
How many times in history have we regretted over-building this kind of infrastructure? We have no shortage of good ways to use electric energy. If AI turns out to be a fad, others will benefit.
Pollution is a concern, but I think don't think that anti-growth or anti-consumption sentiments are useful. All this money pouring in is an opportunity to invest in clean energy.
> GPT-6 might need about 10% of the world’s computers, a large power plant’s worth of energy ... Probably this looks like a town-sized data center attached to a lot of solar panels or a nuclear reactor.
> GPT-7 might need all of the world’s computers, a gargantuan power plant beyond any that currently exist ... Probably this looks like a city-sized data center attached to a fusion plant.
> Without committed financial skin in the game, isn't this just a dog and pony show?
Kind of: IMHO it's to 'simplify' negotiations to certain extent.
Given that Oklo is a publicly traded company, and major financial deals may have material effects on stock, there are procedures for handling those deals as if some folks know about a (potential) deal but others do not, you can get into trouble with insider information.
By public announcing the negotiations and intent then the handling of information—especially with-in Oklo—can perhaps be more flexible and less siloed, which allows more folks to talk about what's going (both internally and externally). This way the negotiating team can (e.g.) pull in any random employee into a meeting to talk about (say) technical details about connections, power factors, support, without having to worry about 'internal embargoes'.
Marketing is the interface to the consumer and includes everything from deciding what you think customers will want and how to design the product to that to how you service the product in the field. It’s not a synonym for “bullshit” although marketing can be bullshit as much as any kind of investor communications or PR, either of which is a better description of this article.
It's more than a "yeah I am interested" email, or hoping that their costs will be lower than the spot price of electricity. To your point its less than a money down contract, but its not nothing.
The price of electricity has a high volatility, and having a guaranteed buyer at a given price can stabilize their business. Even if not guaranteed, it can make their business look more attractive to lenders/investors.
The point is it's not guaranteed at all, since it's a non binding letter of intent.
I don't see any point other than to give something to calm nervous investors or to get more investors.
Furthermore, if fusion ever works electricity will be too cheap to meter. So why sign a non-binding forward purchase agreement for something that if it works will cost $0?
Why do you think fusion will be cheaper than fission power? Fusion will, at least for a significant time, require investments in the fusion plants as well as maintenance and operations.
The only way I can see something like fusion become cheap quickly, is if all labor becomes cheap because of AI.
> Furthermore, if fusion ever works electricity will be too cheap to meter.
Not to take this discussion in a different tangent, but I seriously doubt it. In CA, PG&E’s share of renewable keeps increasing, as do our rate. There’re a myriad of operating expenses as well as monopolistic rent seeking, and in this case IP development cost recovery that cost reduction may remain a pipe dream..
Oklo isn’t a fusion startup. They are planning to build small modular molten salt fission reactors aka next gen SMR fast reactors if you want the buzzwords.
Fusion is an incredibly energy dense power source, but that does not necessarily make it cheap. e.g Uranium 235 is 3 million times more energy dense than coal, but nuclear power is not cheaper. And fusion is much closer in energy density to fission than fission is to coal.
Considering that they’d filed the first application for a non-LWR in decades I don’t think they did that bad. Still I thought it was a waste that they went on and on about the risk of supervolcanos and never said what they would do if the sodium coolant caught on fire. (Not that hard to answer, necessarily as you can detect it, drain water if is involved, and put the fire out…. But you’ve got to have some answer for an SFR.)
Slightly off-topic, but what is more profitable: energy generation (power plants) or electricity distribution (the grid)? Would love to hear from those who watch this space.
Both AI data centers and new-generation nuclear tech are prestige investments so arguing about need and appropriateness is beside the point. Paying large premium to have a carbon neutral AI is going to go unquestioned.
But there is still a potential snag: Is it insurable?
Gosh am I annoyed by these bullshit energy startups.
They want to sell a PPA? For a technology for which they don't even have a working prototype? That has never produced a single kwh of energy?
That's like... step 200 before step 0.5.
Readit News
I have very mixed feelings about this. I love the possibilities of all these datacenters and their potential, but I'm worried about the massive amount of energy they are consuming. If this is all just so much hype and marketing, then it's incredibly wasteful.
Of course, any "advanced nuclear" that doesn't even have a prototype yet will take longer than that. If it will ever happen.
Is this actually true or hyperbole? Ireland has the same size and population as Virginia is described as a major location for data centres, but all the data centres on the island combined take up less than one square km [0]. By comparison, Dublin Airport is 10 square km.
Sounds like Virginia needs to be two orders of magnitude more dense in DCs, or have them developed exactly in a ribbon along your route, to really dominate the landscape like that.
[0] https://baxtel.com/data-center/republic-of-ireland
https://biz.loudoun.gov/datacenteralley/
Pollution is a concern, but I think don't think that anti-growth or anti-consumption sentiments are useful. All this money pouring in is an opportunity to invest in clean energy.
> GPT-7 might need all of the world’s computers, a gargantuan power plant beyond any that currently exist ... Probably this looks like a city-sized data center attached to a fusion plant.
Snippet from Astral Codex Ten's article "Sam Altman Wants $7 Trillion".
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sam-altman-wants-7-trillion
I guess $10 trillion is the next B.S. number you have to throw out to get PR points.
Dead Comment
Does this mean anything at all? Sounds like the equivalent of "cool story, bro" from the signing party.
Without committed financial skin in the game, isn't this just a dog and pony show?
Kind of: IMHO it's to 'simplify' negotiations to certain extent.
Given that Oklo is a publicly traded company, and major financial deals may have material effects on stock, there are procedures for handling those deals as if some folks know about a (potential) deal but others do not, you can get into trouble with insider information.
By public announcing the negotiations and intent then the handling of information—especially with-in Oklo—can perhaps be more flexible and less siloed, which allows more folks to talk about what's going (both internally and externally). This way the negotiating team can (e.g.) pull in any random employee into a meeting to talk about (say) technical details about connections, power factors, support, without having to worry about 'internal embargoes'.
The price of electricity has a high volatility, and having a guaranteed buyer at a given price can stabilize their business. Even if not guaranteed, it can make their business look more attractive to lenders/investors.
The only way I can see something like fusion become cheap quickly, is if all labor becomes cheap because of AI.
Not to take this discussion in a different tangent, but I seriously doubt it. In CA, PG&E’s share of renewable keeps increasing, as do our rate. There’re a myriad of operating expenses as well as monopolistic rent seeking, and in this case IP development cost recovery that cost reduction may remain a pipe dream..
Anybody who says this about any technology isn't thinking about infrastructure costs.
No need to wait for some future power source.
The revenue potential for any nuclear reactor in the age of renewables is going to be incredibly slim.
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/advanced/who-were-...
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/news/2022/22-...
A solar plant is very profitable to run right now. Probably that.
But there is still a potential snag: Is it insurable?
They want to sell a PPA? For a technology for which they don't even have a working prototype? That has never produced a single kwh of energy? That's like... step 200 before step 0.5.
These companies tend to try survive on public money and grants while not delivering anything.
Then when the last deadline finally passes the project is cancelled like what happened with NuScale.