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It’s not real funding, it’s a power purchase agreement from something that may never be built! No different from Microsoft’s previous fusion power purchase agre
by pinewurst 2y ago
It’s not real funding, it’s a power purchase agreement from something that may never be built! No different from Microsoft’s previous fusion power purchase agreement. The Goog may as well announce they’ve reserved office space in a building to be built on Proxima Centauri B.
Just tech virtue signalling: Google/Microsoft trade the impression that they’re relevant leaders for some legitimacy for a blue sky startup.
- joshmarinacci 2y agoA power purchase agreement is critical to getting investment. The US aviation industry is wouldn’t exist if not for the UK and French governments making a purchase agreement for planes at the start of WW2
- snapetom 2y agoIt's funny how many people think getting investments is as easy as just asking a bank or VC for money. If you want anything substantial besides scraps of angel/friends and family rounds, you need to prove your product first. Getting Google in line as a customer is absolutely huge for Kairos.
- ViewTrick1002 2y agoAll depends on the $/MWh figure.
- vlovich123 2y agoAnd the belief that you will actually be able to deliver it. Try it. Go try to pitch Google a $/MWh figure that undercuts what they’re offered here and see how far you get.
- bobthepanda 2y agoIIRC Nuscale was supposed to be doing a demo SMR project in Idaho until the costs blew out and nobody wanted to pay for the new costs. So we’ll see what comes of this.
- kortilla 2y agoWhat are you talking about? If you have Google an offer to sell them $1 for $0.50 they will absolutely take it even if they 99% think you will flop. There is no downside.
- WalterBright 2y agoThe B-17 was developed in 1936 and initial orders were placed in 1938. The government bought hundreds of Douglas B-18 bombers before 1940.
- PeterCorless 2y agoThe B-18 Bolo was already obsolete by 1940. Too heavy. Too slow. Range was too short. They were relegated to ASW work. The B-17, on the other hand, ably earned her nickname, the "Queen of the Skies."
- WalterBright 2y agoTrue. But those orders supported the american aviation industry.
- sien 2y agoAlso the DC-3 / C-47 had its first flight in 1935. With over 10,000 built it showed the US aircraft industry was strong before WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_DC-3
- psunavy03 2y agoUhh . . . source on that claim?
- throwup238 2y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Purchasing_Commission https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Purchasing_Commissio...
- samatman 2y agoThis is a very far cry from the claim, which is that the American aviation industry would not exist were it not for some orders by Britain and France. That one is hard to support, given that the American aviation industry was the first such industry, anywhere, and was doing quite well for itself prior to the outbreak of the war. Did the orders help? Um. Yes? I mean they stopped paying for the planes after Lend-Lease so, mixed bag there, there was a war on and all. But I don't see how the gulf between "Without Britain and France paying for a few planes before the war started" and "$50 Billion in materiel provided free of charge with most of the debt written off and most of the production destroyed in combat" gets bridged. I'm calling shenanigans.
- sien 2y agoYep. Exactly. Do you think a weaker but more accurate claim would be : "The US aircraft industry was considerably helped by French and British orders for World War II."
- dublin 2y agoIt's worth noting that only several years earlier, the US aircraft industry was almost completely killed by the Wright's patents and licensing practices. The UK, France (especially), Italy, and others were way ahead of the US until the Feds made the Wrights share their patents to support production of arms for WW I. This led to the rise of far more innovative competitors in aircraft design and production: Curtiss, Martin, Lockheed, Boeing, etc., which rapidly eclipsed the Wright company's fossilized and already obsolete technology. (Note that Wright was soon more or less forced to merge with Curtiss...)
- hi-v-rocknroll 2y agoInsurance and regulatory hurdles are far higher than contracts selling future electricity customer purchase agreements and likely to doom almost all new nuclear projects in the US as they have for the past 50 years. I don't see why an amoral customer would care about the specific source power as long as it's cheapest, but even a socially-conscious customer would probably be okay with renewables if and when they are generally the cheapest option. Perhaps there are a handful of specific datacenter locations and requirements in particular areas that would be better suited to geothermal or nuclear.
- anticensor 2y agoCorporations too have survival and self-preservation instincts.
- Dylan16807 2y agoIt can be a necessary step but also a weak gesture at the same time. It doesn't inspire confidence the way actual non-conditional spending does.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> it’s a power purchase agreement from something that may never be built! No different from Microsoft’s previous fusion power purchase agreement A frequent complaint from utilities has been AI companies refusing to sign PPAs. They want the option of picking up and leaving if someone else offers a better deal down the road, leaving the utility stuck with overbuilt infrastructure costs. > virtue signalling This term has lost whatever meaning it ever had if we're using it to refer to binding contracts.
- pinewurst 2y agoThis isn’t a binding contract like Elon Musk agreeing to buy Twitter. Google may be bound in some way to buy power from a future unbuilt powerplant that doesn’t yet exist in prototype form. If Kairos fizzles, more likely than not, can Google seek damages? Will Microsoft seek damages from their binding contract when Helios isn’t grinding out fusion gigawatts in 2028 as promised?
- Tostino 2y agoThis is de-risking the other way. It allows the energy companies to build their infrastructure without worries that they will get undercut by a competitor and be stuck with overbuilt infrastructure and no one to sell to. Without that commitment, the investment doesn't get made into the new power generation. Margins in that industry are much lower than in tech.
- patmorgan23 2y agoYes, it gives them some firm future revenue numbers to work with. They can take this agreement and get financing to pay for the actual construction needed.
- mensetmanusman 2y agoWhy would they fissile? Nuclear is solved.
- 2y ago
- jakjak123 2y agoYeah, its not much I agree. But it is an agreement the company can wave that they at least have future buyers for their non-existing power generators if they were to build them!
- davidmillerAI 2y ago[dead]
- danans 2y ago> It’s not real funding, it’s a power purchase agreement from something that may never be built! PPAs can be used as evidence of guaranteed revenue when raising funds in capital and debt markets. That capital and debt is used to develop and deploy the technology.