By Jo Nova
Soon every tech billionaire will have their own nuclear power plant
Two weeks ago it was Microsoft reviving Three Mile Island’s nuclear plant. Now Google is buying seven small modular reactors, and Amazon is spending $500 million USD on part of a nuclear energy company.
Too bad for the deplorables who get stuck with the expensive wind-solar-battery clunker spaghetti-grid forced on them by the arts graduates in Parliament. An AI datacentre needs all the same thing a human city does — cheap gigawatts, 24 hours a day. The number-nerd men with money have all decided the cheapest reliable answer to running their AI data center cities, while pretending to fix the weather, is nuclear power. (Coal, of course, is cheaper which is why China uses so much, but it’s against the religion).
The unwashed masses won’t get that choice, of course, to sign up with whatever generator they want. Only the uber rich get that kind of luck.
Every one of these tech giants could have poured that money into wind farms and gardens of solar panels, backed up with acres of batteries and ten thousand miles of high voltage towers, pumped hydro, and synchronous condenser flywheels. But none of them want to pour in their own billions anymore, despite the social credit points bonanza and the bragging rights that would bring.
For twenty years these same people have been pushing the renewable hard sell on us, now overnight, without so much as a “sorry” they’ve all flipped, leaving us holding the can of decrepit national grids that can’t do what they were designed to do.
Google will build seven small nuclear reactors, the first by 2030…Our PM and the CSIRO must be feeling hung-out-to-dry. They declared nuclear was the most expensive option and said Australia couldn’t even build one before 2040.
Google signs deal with startup to build small nuclear reactors to power AI
Aljazeera
Google has signed a landmark deal to use electricity produced by small nuclear reactors to power its artificial intelligence (AI) efforts.
Under the agreement with startup Kairos Power announced on Monday, the California-based tech giant will back the construction of seven small nuclear reactors capable of generating 500 megawatts of power. The first reactor is scheduled to come online by 2030, with others to follow in the coming years.
“The grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies that are powering major scientific advances, improving services for businesses and customers, and driving national competitiveness and economic growth,” Michael Terrell, the senior director of energy and climate at Google, said in a blog post.
Two days later, Amazon too.
Amazon follows Google in taking the nuclear option to power data centres
EuroNews
Amazon is investing in US firm X-energy to utilise nuclear reactors to power its data centres.
Amazon and X-energy are aiming to have more than 5 gigawatts of SMR-generated power operational by 2039.
The reactors are currently under development, with none currently providing power to the electric grid in the US.
Big investors can help change that, and these announcements could be the “inflection point” that makes scaling up this technology truly possible, Huff said.
Feel the heat. Only weeks ago these same billionaires were raving about renewable energy, downranking and censoring the skeptics… now they are doing exactly what we said all along.
I wonder if the large AI users will have their own transmission lines from the generators out to their AI cities. If not, then maybe us plebs could get a little of the good stuff too.
On a side note, does this mean that OZ will not get any AI factories, at least until we remove the ban on nuclear? Maybe this is the employment plans of labour. You get to keep your job pushing pens over a desktop until the computer can get more power. Government employment, guaranteed to last forever.
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Exactly, Ian. Some, like Obama, have their own generators but we all need power for their plans to work.
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Obama not only has his own fuel to power his mansion, but he did it the smart way and went with a fossil fuel. He’s got 2500 gallons of propane and enough propane accessories to keep Hank Hill’s family fed for the foreseeable future.
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Victoria could be the AI centre for the world. Enough lignite to power data centres for thousands of years.
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The big tech guys won’t be thinking of the plebs. Remember it was these same techs who were leading the global boiling and ruinables charge. There’s a fair amount of hypocrisy in this latest move as reality has landed and those fanciful save the world chickens are coming home to roost.
The problem for Australia is that blackout Bowen won’t learn from this. He will reject this just as he rejected the news that all the major financial institutions were behind nuclear. Nothing will change blackout’s mind (sic), because he hasn’t got one to change.
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It’s the difference between Politics and Business.
One wants to stay in business, the other just wants to rule briefly (and expects a great retirement bonus).
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Presumably if so many high profile hitech firms are seen to be abandoning renewables this will give pause for thought by the general public as well as those currently making energy decisions based on ideology, not reality.
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They may have asked AI to determine the lowest cost form of power supply. This from Perplexity comparing 100% “renewable”/battery with 100% coal:
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LCOE is a very faulty costing method for comparisons, as it doesn’t accurately compare costs across the full lifetime of the longest-duration energy source being nuclear. It only looks at lifetime costs of each energy source individually, thus ignoring the fact that while nuclear still continues to supply power, the short-duration renewables have to be torn down and replaced at least twice, if not three times or more. Also it doesn’t include the need for very expensive backup for the unreliable renewables.
Energy think tanks, including IEA in France, IEEJ Japan, OECD and the U.S. EIA have pointed out the fact that LCOE is incomplete.
For a good discussion on this subject, may I recommend “Full cost of electricity ‘FCOE’ and energy returns ‘eROI’”, by Lars Schernikau et al, May 2022.
Also Robert Idel’s “Levelized Full System Costs of Electricity”, November 2022.
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Well, I’ll just have to stop buying stuff from Amazon, using Google or buying Windows…until they come to their senses and buy green electrons, just like Canberra!
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That made me laugh. So true. Arts graduates make all these tech decisions. It’s outrageous. Though was always the way. All the early prominent Australian politicians were lawyers.
It annoys me the prestige law students hold. I knew many law students when I went to university, and while some seemed pretty intelligent, a lot of them were far from that. Shocked me. It was a regional university though. My nephew is just finishing his LLB and I regard him as below average intelligence. You can’t have a conversation with him about any issue, he just freezes and has no idea what you’re talking about nor has any interest. He’s just a nerd who does his homework, gets distinctions. He’ll probably be Minister for Energy one day.
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It does make sense. I’d say that’s the way it will go for a while, the big companies will have their own power supply and the rest will get the unreliable intermittent mess. People with enough funds (and sun) will have their solar running the household, the rest can go hang and survive off the propaganda fed to them. The trend seems to be starting.
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This is all well and good, but if you have electricity powering your home, (and here, keep in mind this would have to be a stand alone solar panel, battery backup home system, not connected to the grid) ….. what good is having that if everything else (which is all connected to a now failed grid) around you is blacked out.
You can’t go anywhere, do anything, shop, hospitals, emergency services etc etc etc.
Huh! You could charge the doorknockers wanting to charge up their phones!! (but then, there would be no reception, as no power to the comms towers)
Tony.
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Businesses that want to stay in business in the CO2 demonised world will need their own power supply.
For example, Aldi is notionally 100% “renewable” (like Canberra) but still relies on the grid. It will be expensive to install batteries at every shop but ultimately lower cost than paying for what will be increasingly expensive grid. The wholesale price may stabilise but the grid costs will continue to cause the retail price to ratchet up.
https://corporate.aldi.com.au/corporate-responsibility/environment/renewable-electricity/
Coles is not as aggressive as ALDI but is on its way to notional (like Canberra) 100% “renewable”:
As the grid deteriorates, these large firms will be always looking at ways to reduce their cost of reliable energy supply. Most locations in Australia can do it at lower cost with solar/battery with small diesel rather than full diesel. Most of the existing supermarkets already have enough diesel to run freezers.
Many mines in Australia already have independence of the grid and some are using solar to reduce their fuel costs.
Aluminium smelters will not exist unless they have a tethered reliable power station.
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It seems Australia is unique in its hang up about nuclear energy. Americans have far less aversion to it. Strange how these fears take hold. Seems to be part of Australia’s character. I predicted the uptake of the vaccine would be high in Aus because of that fear (and it would have been high even without the mandate).
And the really weird thing is Australia is even fearful of coal, which forces the hand on nuclear.
I cannot believe we are even considering nuclear, but that’s what fear, and lack of critical thinking will do to you, strange things. I would think we would have one or two nuclear plants for the curiosity of the technology for the future, but with so much coal and a small population, most energy would come from it, even if co2 theory was correct.
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Mark Mills was correct and he has been warning about the unreliable,toxic W & S + batteries lunacy for years.
Aussies should start to wake up soon but I’ll believe it when I see it.
Labor ,Greens and Teals want unreliable very expensive garbage for our future energy and then replace this Toxic mess every 15 to 20 years and at a cost of trillions of $ forever. See their ABC and Bloomberg estimates online.
Of course their added bonus is up to 28,000 klms of our precious environment destroyed forever.
Just a very obvious fra-d and con trick against their citizens and yet very few want or dare to understand or even make a noise about it.
Again, why is it so?
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Australia and the world generates very little total primary energy today from W & S and FFs still generate most of the world’s energy today.
It would cost endless trillions of $ to change to unreliable, toxic W & S and then replace the mess every 15 to 20 years at least.
The smart countries will only build reliable base-load generators and these plants will last well past 2100 with proper servicing over the years.
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There is a bit of a nasty after taste that goes with the pleasure of laughing at the doomsters, perhaps being awakened from their wokeness. We are getting woke AI.
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I hope the Coalition is reads this, Jo, so they can raise it in parliament. Google and Amazon going nuclear will be impossible even for the Left to ignore or forget.
A link to this page should be sent to every local conservative member, federal, state and local. I suggest another page devoted to this purpose.
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The “…arts graduates in parliament”. Love it!! Read Jo’s blog, get some science education and satirical comedy at the same time.
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When was the last manufacturing plant built in Australia?
Under the control of the CFMEU, only government funded projects get built, or we import all the components for solar panels and windmills.
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We built a Moderna vaccine plant in Victoria- does that count? ( rhetorical?, don’t answer)
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BTW here’s the percentage use of fossil fuels for the world and a number of countries.
Australian percentage is high but we only emit about 1% of global co2 emissions and China about 30%.
But Canada’s use of FFs is about 65% and still about the same percentage for the last 23 years.
Global tonnages of FFs are much higher today and NON OECD co2 emissions have increased by about 14 billion tons per year over the last 30 years.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fossil-fuels-share-energy?tab=chart&country=USA~JPN~CAN~FRA~ITA~DEU~GBR~OWID_WRL~AUS~CHN
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Jo, I wonder if Bowen is even aware of this. He seems to be totally blinkered and unable to take in any information opposed to his belief that wind and solar is the only option to power this country into the future. And I will not comment on the CSIRO!
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The King island hybrid system is mostly running on the Diesel generator again this morning.
https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/hybrid-energy-solutions/success-stories/king-island
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The good news is that unlike yesterday the total output now matches the total demand.
But seriously how do you manage to get only 238kW out of a wind generator on an island in the roaring forties?
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Thanks for this update Jo. I would assume we won’t hear about this change In energy supply strategy from the three letter public broadcasters and the woke MSM corporations? Ouch, inconvenient truths.
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The Blog hates being proven wrong. But no doubt they are already workshopping strategies to flip-flop to nuclear without looking stupid and claim credit for doing so. It’s too late for Bowen, of course; he’s in too dumb… I mean deep… I mean both.
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