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> literal nuclear reactor inside data centers This is fascinating to think about. Wonder what kind of shielding/environmental controls/all other kinds of chan
by candiddevmike 2y ago
> literal nuclear reactor inside data centers
This is fascinating to think about. Wonder what kind of shielding/environmental controls/all other kinds of changes you'd need for this to actually work. Would rack-sized SMR be contained enough not to impact anything? Would datacenter operators/workers need to follow NRC guidance?
- talldayo 2y agoI think the simple answer is that it doesn't make sense. Nuclear power plants generate a byproduct that inherently limits the performance of computers; heat. Having either a cooling system, reactor or turbine located inside a datacenter is immediately rendered pointless because you end up managing two competing thermal systems at once. There is no reason to localize a reactor inside a datacenter when you could locate it elsewhere and pipe the generated electricity into it via preexisting high voltage lines.
- kergonath 2y ago> Nuclear power plants generate a byproduct that inherently limits the performance of computers; heat. The reactor does not need to be in the datacenter. It can be a couple hundreds meters away, bog-standard cables would be perfectly able to move the electrons. The cables being 20m or 200m long does not matter much. You’re right though, putting them in the same building as a datacenter still makes no sense.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kergonath 2y agoIt makes zero sense to build them in datacenters and I don’t know of any safety authority that would allow deploying reactors without serious protection measures that would at the very least impose a different, dedicated building. At some point it does make sense to have a small reactor powering a local datacenter or two, however. Licensing would still be not trivial.