4 ms·

I believe Microsoft is currently doing just that, reserving the output of Three Mile Island. The article was here on HN around a week ago. I don't necessarily

I believe Microsoft is currently doing just that, reserving the output of Three Mile Island. The article was here on HN around a week ago. I don't necessarily see anything wrong with that, and I can see the communication of demand changes back to generation being useful to those running the plant(s).

atomic128 2y ago
Microsoft commits to pay somewhere between $100/MWh and $140/MWh for 20 years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41601443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41601443 Microsoft's commitment allows Constellation Energy to restart the 819 MW nuclear fission reactor at Three Mile Island. This reactor operated without problems for approximately 45 years and was switched off in 2019. The other reactor at Three Mile Island (880 MW) melted harmlessly in 1979 due to operator error. That reactor will never be restarted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident Clean baseload power is extremely valuable. Nuclear fission is the only clean baseload power source mature enough to be widely adopted. Today there are 440 nuclear fission reactors operating in 32 countries. Having used fission reactors for 70 years, we know how to build them and operate them at 95%+ efficiency (https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity). For example, Vogtle 3 and 4 have been operating at 100% of their capacity. In contrast, solar and wind are not baseload power solutions. They are intermittent and unreliable, fundamentally weather dependent. If you have battery backup sufficient for time T and the weather doesn't cooperate for time T+1, your data center is offline. Furthermore, even a day or two of battery backup eliminates the cost advantage of solar and wind. As a last resort, fossil fuel backup plants can be built, but building them is costly and using them is dirty. See Germany's power grid for an embarrassing real-world example. Solar + wind + batteries is an intrinsically unreliable, unacceptable solution. Please see Yann LeCun's comments, reflecting Meta's view on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41621097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41621097
- pydry 2y ago
  >solar and wind are not baseload power solutions. They are intermittent and unreliable. Being 5x cheaper more than makes up for that though. None of the viable modes of storage (pumped water, hydrogen, batteries) are expensive enough to make paying 5x per kilowatt hour worthwhile any more. If you roundtrip solar and wind via hydrogen stored for months and back into electricity again (the most expensive mechanism), it's still cheaper than every single kilowatt hour of nuclear power delivered on the sunniest, windiest days. It really is difficult to overstate just how mind bogglingly expensive nuclear power is. Unless it's used to cross-subsidize the military nuclear industry it just isnt worth it.
  - RayVR 2y ago
    Where are you going to build a 1GW solar installation with multiple days of storage capacity in the northeast? long transmission lines significantly reduce efficiency and add massive costs as well as creating easy targets for terrorism.
    - pydry 2y ago
      Firstly, we should probably not start by building a mathematical renewable energy model that presumes wind energy doesn't exist. Storing solar energy for use while the wind is blowing hard is a bit pointless and vice versa. You don't store energy from solar on a sunny winter day to use at midnight when the wind is blowing hardest and consumption is lowest. Your store energy to use on those rarer hours when it is neither sunny nor windy and when consumption exceeds the production of both. This can be done cost effectively and at scale in two ways - 1) by pushing water uphill for short term storage and 2) by manufacturing hydrogen and storing it underground for longer term storage. So, you combine overproduced solar, wind, pumping water uphill and electrolyzing and storing hydrogen to match demand with supply. Solar and wind and their transmission are distributed. This makes them poor terrorism targets. A nuclear plant, on the other hand, is a great target for terrorists.
  - chickenbig 2y ago
    > Unless it's used to cross-subsidize the military nuclear industry it just isnt worth it. I feel sure Ontario does not have nuclear weapons ambitions. > If you round trip solar and wind via hydrogen Do you have any examples of this at commercial scale (hundreds of MW) and their costings?

atomic128 2y ago

Microsoft commits to pay somewhere between $100/MWh and $140/MWh for 20 years: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41601443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41601443 Microsoft's commitment allows Constellation Energy to restart the 819 MW nuclear fission reactor at Three Mile Island. This reactor operated without problems for approximately 45 years and was switched off in 2019. The other reactor at Three Mile Island (880 MW) melted harmlessly in 1979 due to operator error. That reactor will never be restarted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident Clean baseload power is extremely valuable. Nuclear fission is the only clean baseload power source mature enough to be widely adopted. Today there are 440 nuclear fission reactors operating in 32 countries. Having used fission reactors for 70 years, we know how to build them and operate them at 95%+ efficiency (https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/what-generation-capacity). For example, Vogtle 3 and 4 have been operating at 100% of their capacity. In contrast, solar and wind are not baseload power solutions. They are intermittent and unreliable, fundamentally weather dependent. If you have battery backup sufficient for time T and the weather doesn't cooperate for time T+1, your data center is offline. Furthermore, even a day or two of battery backup eliminates the cost advantage of solar and wind. As a last resort, fossil fuel backup plants can be built, but building them is costly and using them is dirty. See Germany's power grid for an embarrassing real-world example. Solar + wind + batteries is an intrinsically unreliable, unacceptable solution. Please see Yann LeCun's comments, reflecting Meta's view on this topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41621097 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41621097

pydry 2y ago
>solar and wind are not baseload power solutions. They are intermittent and unreliable. Being 5x cheaper more than makes up for that though. None of the viable modes of storage (pumped water, hydrogen, batteries) are expensive enough to make paying 5x per kilowatt hour worthwhile any more. If you roundtrip solar and wind via hydrogen stored for months and back into electricity again (the most expensive mechanism), it's still cheaper than every single kilowatt hour of nuclear power delivered on the sunniest, windiest days. It really is difficult to overstate just how mind bogglingly expensive nuclear power is. Unless it's used to cross-subsidize the military nuclear industry it just isnt worth it.
- RayVR 2y ago
  Where are you going to build a 1GW solar installation with multiple days of storage capacity in the northeast? long transmission lines significantly reduce efficiency and add massive costs as well as creating easy targets for terrorism.
  - pydry 2y ago
    Firstly, we should probably not start by building a mathematical renewable energy model that presumes wind energy doesn't exist. Storing solar energy for use while the wind is blowing hard is a bit pointless and vice versa. You don't store energy from solar on a sunny winter day to use at midnight when the wind is blowing hardest and consumption is lowest. Your store energy to use on those rarer hours when it is neither sunny nor windy and when consumption exceeds the production of both. This can be done cost effectively and at scale in two ways - 1) by pushing water uphill for short term storage and 2) by manufacturing hydrogen and storing it underground for longer term storage. So, you combine overproduced solar, wind, pumping water uphill and electrolyzing and storing hydrogen to match demand with supply. Solar and wind and their transmission are distributed. This makes them poor terrorism targets. A nuclear plant, on the other hand, is a great target for terrorists.
- chickenbig 2y ago
  > Unless it's used to cross-subsidize the military nuclear industry it just isnt worth it. I feel sure Ontario does not have nuclear weapons ambitions. > If you round trip solar and wind via hydrogen Do you have any examples of this at commercial scale (hundreds of MW) and their costings?