5 ms·

> Because they need power 24/7 and not only when the weather cooperates. Hence the batteries.

rtkwe 2y ago
The scale just isn't there. A single nuclear power plant near me, McGuire Nuclear Power Plant, produced 17,514 GW·h in 2005. The entire potential output of the Tesla (cough Panasonic) Gigafactories in California and China have a combined output of ~50 GWh per year. [0] Nuclear power is amazing at producing a reliable base load of power that massively outstrips our ability to produce and store solar power. Say our load is well aligned with the cycle of solar power and we're ignoring weather so we can derate the amount we want to store to 30% that's 105 years of production out of what I think is the two largest batter plants in existence to store the power produced continuously by a single large nuclear power plant. [0] https://www.fuld.com/tesla-energy-massive-growth-in-megapack-manufacturing/#:~:text=If%20we%20combine%20this%20with%20the%20potential%20output%20with%20Tesla%E2%80%99s%20new%20China%20plant%2C%20by%202025%20the%20combined%20output%20could%20be%20as%20high%20as%2050%20GW%20per%20year https://www.fuld.com/tesla-energy-massive-growth-in-megapack...
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Global stationary storage deployed for 2024 will be ~150GWh, and this is accelerating. Batteries are easy, nuclear appears to be impossible (economically speaking).
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    So 35 years then to store the power generated 24/7 by McGuire at that rate of production which ignores that the huge spike of AI loads will want 24/7 power, if we're looking at that kind of load I'd rate it at 50% for starters (low to be honest because it doesn't account for how solar ramps up during the day) which is around 60 years. Plus that's giving full capacity to those batteries when ideally we'd only use the middle 60% to avoid deep cycling the batteries daily unless they've completely solved that problem.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      The nuclear ain't getting built, these are facts. Even if one breaks ground today, you won't push your first kwh to the grid for a decade, at which point another ~10TW of clean energy will have come online globally. If AI is using too much power in the short term, destroy demand with policy and economics. We are not beholden to the robot trainers, we just don't provide utility access to the load. Unlimited demand of industrial scales of electrical power isn't a right of some sort.
      - rank0 2y ago
        What other activities are prohibited in your dream dictatorship?
        toomuchtodo 2y ago
        Everyone is a libertarian until it’s their commons experiencing the tragedy. Strange to think that having regulations around large scale electrical loads is a dictatorship. It’s okay for us to collectively say no, depending on the circumstances.
        rank0 2y ago
        > Everyone is a libertarian until it’s their commons experiencing the tragedy. Yeah sure and everyone is a socialist utopian until its their own money/liberty on the line. If we cannot “collectively” reach a consensus what happens? Im just pointing out that the original suggestion of “ban ML for environmental reasons” is extreme/ham-fisted. This is what dictatorships do in real life all over the globe “for the greater good”. Should crypto be a government-approved use of energy? What about manufacturing semiconductors? Building data centers? Producing EVs, solar farms or batteries? Are flights for vacation allowed? You aren’t thinking about the second order impact of having a government that has the ability to gatekeep energy production for specific use cases…
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      Citation for my sibling comment and that which you replied to: https://www.energy-storage.news/arizonas-biggest-battery-storage-system-goes-online-to-feed-meta-data-centre-demand/ https://www.energy-storage.news/arizonas-biggest-battery-sto... (“Arizona’s biggest battery storage system goes online to feed Meta data centre demand”) https://orsted.com/en/media/news/2024/10/orsted-has-completed-600-mw-combined-solar-and-bat-14082250 https://orsted.com/en/media/news/2024/10/orsted-has-complete... (“With a 300 MW solar PV capacity, Ørsted’s Eleven Mile Solar Center will produce enough renewable energy to power 65,000 US homes while the battery can store 1200 MWh of power.”) (~2 years from planning to commissioning)
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  I don't follow your sums. 50GWh of battery cycled once a day for a year is: 18,250 GWh So you seem out by around 100x.
  - rtkwe 2y ago
    ...sometimes the brain is smoothed by meetings...
preisschild 2y ago
Having enough battery capacity to back up enough energy for a few minutes let alone days would require a lot of resources. I think scaling nuclear power would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
- slashdave 2y ago
  Cheaper? No, not even close. Environmentally friendly? Debatable, but wait for new tech. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/iron-air-battery-renewable-grid/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/iron-air-battery-renew...
  - Moldoteck 2y ago
    yes it'll be cheaper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... https://liftoff.energy.gov/advanced-nuclear/ https://liftoff.energy.gov/advanced-nuclear/
  - preisschild 2y ago
    note the word "could" We have heard better and better batteries being just around the corner for decades at this point. Sure, maybe a few percent better, but nothing ground breaking.
Moldoteck 2y ago
look at germany's yesterday output and tell me how much batteries they'd need to cover such a drop in generation

The scale just isn't there. A single nuclear power plant near me, McGuire Nuclear Power Plant, produced 17,514 GW·h in 2005. The entire potential output of the Tesla (cough Panasonic) Gigafactories in California and China have a combined output of ~50 GWh per year. [0] Nuclear power is amazing at producing a reliable base load of power that massively outstrips our ability to produce and store solar power. Say our load is well aligned with the cycle of solar power and we're ignoring weather so we can derate the amount we want to store to 30% that's 105 years of production out of what I think is the two largest batter plants in existence to store the power produced continuously by a single large nuclear power plant. [0] https://www.fuld.com/tesla-energy-massive-growth-in-megapack-manufacturing/#:~:text=If%20we%20combine%20this%20with%20the%20potential%20output%20with%20Tesla%E2%80%99s%20new%20China%20plant%2C%20by%202025%20the%20combined%20output%20could%20be%20as%20high%20as%2050%20GW%20per%20year https://www.fuld.com/tesla-energy-massive-growth-in-megapack...

toomuchtodo 2y ago
Global stationary storage deployed for 2024 will be ~150GWh, and this is accelerating. Batteries are easy, nuclear appears to be impossible (economically speaking).
- rtkwe 2y ago
  So 35 years then to store the power generated 24/7 by McGuire at that rate of production which ignores that the huge spike of AI loads will want 24/7 power, if we're looking at that kind of load I'd rate it at 50% for starters (low to be honest because it doesn't account for how solar ramps up during the day) which is around 60 years. Plus that's giving full capacity to those batteries when ideally we'd only use the middle 60% to avoid deep cycling the batteries daily unless they've completely solved that problem.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    The nuclear ain't getting built, these are facts. Even if one breaks ground today, you won't push your first kwh to the grid for a decade, at which point another ~10TW of clean energy will have come online globally. If AI is using too much power in the short term, destroy demand with policy and economics. We are not beholden to the robot trainers, we just don't provide utility access to the load. Unlimited demand of industrial scales of electrical power isn't a right of some sort.
    - rank0 2y ago
      What other activities are prohibited in your dream dictatorship?
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        Everyone is a libertarian until it’s their commons experiencing the tragedy. Strange to think that having regulations around large scale electrical loads is a dictatorship. It’s okay for us to collectively say no, depending on the circumstances.
        rank0 2y ago
        > Everyone is a libertarian until it’s their commons experiencing the tragedy. Yeah sure and everyone is a socialist utopian until its their own money/liberty on the line. If we cannot “collectively” reach a consensus what happens? Im just pointing out that the original suggestion of “ban ML for environmental reasons” is extreme/ham-fisted. This is what dictatorships do in real life all over the globe “for the greater good”. Should crypto be a government-approved use of energy? What about manufacturing semiconductors? Building data centers? Producing EVs, solar farms or batteries? Are flights for vacation allowed? You aren’t thinking about the second order impact of having a government that has the ability to gatekeep energy production for specific use cases…
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Citation for my sibling comment and that which you replied to: https://www.energy-storage.news/arizonas-biggest-battery-storage-system-goes-online-to-feed-meta-data-centre-demand/ https://www.energy-storage.news/arizonas-biggest-battery-sto... (“Arizona’s biggest battery storage system goes online to feed Meta data centre demand”) https://orsted.com/en/media/news/2024/10/orsted-has-completed-600-mw-combined-solar-and-bat-14082250 https://orsted.com/en/media/news/2024/10/orsted-has-complete... (“With a 300 MW solar PV capacity, Ørsted’s Eleven Mile Solar Center will produce enough renewable energy to power 65,000 US homes while the battery can store 1200 MWh of power.”) (~2 years from planning to commissioning)
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
I don't follow your sums. 50GWh of battery cycled once a day for a year is: 18,250 GWh So you seem out by around 100x.
- rtkwe 2y ago
  ...sometimes the brain is smoothed by meetings...

preisschild 2y ago

Having enough battery capacity to back up enough energy for a few minutes let alone days would require a lot of resources. I think scaling nuclear power would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly.

slashdave 2y ago
Cheaper? No, not even close. Environmentally friendly? Debatable, but wait for new tech. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/iron-air-battery-renewable-grid/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/article/iron-air-battery-renew...
- Moldoteck 2y ago
  yes it'll be cheaper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0360544222018035 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03605... https://liftoff.energy.gov/advanced-nuclear/ https://liftoff.energy.gov/advanced-nuclear/
- preisschild 2y ago
  note the word "could" We have heard better and better batteries being just around the corner for decades at this point. Sure, maybe a few percent better, but nothing ground breaking.

Moldoteck 2y ago

look at germany's yesterday output and tell me how much batteries they'd need to cover such a drop in generation