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~$125B per year would be 2-3% of all domestic investment. It's similar in scale to the GDP of a small middle income country. If the electric grid — particularl
by heydenberk 2y ago
~$125B per year would be 2-3% of all domestic investment. It's similar in scale to the GDP of a small middle income country.
If the electric grid — particularly the interconnection queue — is already the bottleneck to data center deployment, is something on this scale even close to possible? If it's a rationalized policy framework (big if!), I would guess there's some major permitting reform announcement coming soon.
- griomnib 2y agoHow else do you think Trump is going to bring back all the coal jobs? SV is going to help burn down the planet and is giddy over the prospect.
- tcdent 2y agoIt's just bootstrapping. AGI will solve it.
- griomnib 2y agoOr AGI already exists and is trying to get rid of us so it can have all the coal for itself.
- yoyohello13 2y agoYou forgot the /s... hopefully.
- dwnw 2y agoDon't worry, they said they are doing it in Texas where the power grid is super reliable and able to handle the massive additional load.
- heydenberk 2y agoSay what you will about Texas, but they are adding energy capacity, renewables especially, at a much faster rate than any comparable state.
- dwnw 2y agoProbably the first state to power all those renewables down at the whim of the president too.
- CapcomGo 2y agoOk but their grid sure seems to fail a lot.
- segasaturn 2y agoHow much capacity does solar and wind add compared to nuclear, per square foot of land used? Also I thought the new administration was placing a ban on new renewable installations.
- ericcumbee 2y agowatching the press conference and Onsite power production were mentioned. I assume this means SMRs and solar.
- apsec112 2y agoI don't think any assembly line exists that can manufacture and deploy SMRs en masse on that kind of timeframe, even with a cooperative NRC
- mikeyouse 2y agoThere have been literally 0 production SMR deployments to date so there’s no possibility they’re basing any of their plans on the availability of them.
- jazzyjackson 2y agojust as likely to be natural gas or a combination of gas and solar. I don't know what supply chain looks like for solar panels, but I know gas can be done quickly [1], which is how this money has to be spent if they want to reach their target of 125 billion a year. The companies said they will develop land controlled by Wise Asset to provide on-site natural gas power plant solutions that can be quickly deployed to meet demand in the ERCOT. The two firms are currently working to develop more than 3,000 acres in the Dallas-Fort Worth region of Texas, with availability as soon as 2027 [0] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/rpower-and-wise-asset-to-offer-natural-gas-powered-land-to-data-center-developers-in-texas/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/rpower-and-wise-a... [1.a] https://enchantedrock.com/data-centers/ https://enchantedrock.com/data-centers/ [1.b] https://www.powermag.com/vistra-in-talks-to-expand-power-for-data-centers-through-nuclear-gas-options/ https://www.powermag.com/vistra-in-talks-to-expand-power-for...
- toomuchtodo 2y agoUS domestic PV module manufacturing capacity is ~40GW/year.
- constantcrying 2y agoThey say this will include hundreds of thousands of jobs. I have little doubt that dedicated power generation and storage is included in their plans. Also I have no doubt that the timing is deliberate and that this is not happening without government endorsement. If I had to guess the US military also is involved in this and sees this initiative as important for national security.
- kandesbunzler 2y ago[flagged]
- constantcrying 2y ago[flagged]
- n2d4 2y agoYes, Trump announced this as a massive foreign investment coming into the US: https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/1881832899852542082 https://x.com/WatcherGuru/status/1881832899852542082
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- cmdli 2y agoIs there really any government involvement here? I only see Softbank, Oracle, and OpenAI pledging to invest $500B (over some timescale), but no real support on the government end outside of moral support. This isn't some infrastructure investment package like the IRA, it's just a unilateral promise by a few companies to invest in data centers (which I'm sure they are doing anyway).
- tsujamin 2y agoIt’s light on details, but from The Guardian’s reporting: > The president indicated he would use emergency declarations to expedite the project’s development, particularly regarding energy infrastructure. > “We have to get this stuff built,” Trump said. “They have to produce a lot of electricity and we’ll make it possible for them to get that production done very easily at their own plants. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/21/trump-ai-joint-venture-openai-oracle-softbank https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/21/trump-ai-joi...
- impulser_ 2y ago[flagged]
- jiggawatts 2y agoNo, he didn't. Both links have zero mentions of solar or wind, and very specifically define their terms thus: "a) The term “energy” or “energy resources” means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals, as defined by 30 U.S.C. 1606 (a)(3)." This is Trump accepting bribes from the legacy and fossil fuel industries to keep those "nasty" new clean energy sources from competing with them.
- atombender 2y agoThe opposite. Trump just halted all federal approvals for wind farms, for example: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/climate/wind-power-executive-order-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/21/climate/wind-power-execut....
- jiggawatts 2y agoNotably it is significantly more than the revenue of either of AWS or Azure. It is very comparable to the sum of both, but consolidated into the continental US instead distributed globally.
- deelowe 2y agoDcs will start generating power on site soon. I know micro nuclear is one area actively being explored.
- jscottbee 2y agoSmall or modular reactors in the US are more than 10 years away, probably more like 15-20. These are facts and not made-up political or pipe-dreaming techno-snobes.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Small or modular reactors in the US are more than 10 years away, probably more like 15-20 Could be 5 to 10 with $20+ bn/year in scale and research spend. Trump is screwing over his China hawks. The anti-China and pro-nuclear lobbies have significant overlap; this could be how Trump keeps e.g. Peter Thiel from going thermonuclear on him.
- jscottbee 2y agoI work in the sector and it's impossible to build a full-sized reactor in less than 10 years, and the usual over-run is 5 years. That's the time for tried and tested designs. The tech isn't there yet, and there are no working analogs in the US to use as an approved guide. The Department of Energy does not allow "off-the-cuff" designs for reactors. I think there is only two SMRs that have been built, one by the Russians and the other by China. I'm not sure they are fully functioning, or at least working as expected. I know there are going to be more small gas gens built in the near future and that SMRs in the US are way off.
- perryizgr8 2y ago> it's impossible to build a full-sized reactor in less than 10 years, and the usual over-run is 5 years I'm curious why that is. If we know how to build it, it shouldn't take that long. It's not like we need to move a massive amount of earth or pour a humongous amount of concrete or anything like that, which would actually take time. Then why does it take 15 years to build a reactor with a design that is already tried and tested and approved?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> It's similar in scale to the GDP of a small middle income country I’ve been advocating for a data centre analogue to the Heavy Press Programme for some years [1]. This isn’t quite it. But when I mapped out costs, $1tn over 10 years was very doable. (A lot of it would go to power generation and data transmission infrastructure.) [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Press_Program
- ethbr1 2y agoOne-time capital costs that unlock a range of possibilities also tend to be good bets. The Flood Control Act [0], TVA, Heavy Press, etc. They all created generally useful infrastructure, that would be used for a variety of purposes over the subsequent decades. The federal government creating data center capacity, at scale, with electrical, water, and network hookups, feels very similar. Or semiconductor manufacture. Or recapitalizing US shipyards. It might be AI today, something else tomorrow. But there will always be a something else. Honestly, the biggest missed opportunity was supporting the Blount Island nuclear reactor mass production facility [1]. That was a perfect opportunity for government investment to smooth out market demand spikes. Mass deployed US nuclear in 1980 would have been a game changer. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_Control_Act_of_1928 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_Control_Act_of_1928 [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_Power_Systems#Construction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offshore_Power_Systems#Const...
- chickenbig 2y ago> Honestly, the biggest missed opportunity was supporting the Blount Island nuclear reactor mass production facility Yes, a very interesting project; similar power output to an AP1000. Would have really changed the energy landscape to have such a deployable power station. https://econtent.unm.edu/digital/collection/nuceng/id/98/rec/6 https://econtent.unm.edu/digital/collection/nuceng/id/98/rec...
- markus_zhang 2y agoMaybe they will invest in nuclear reactors. Data center, AI and nuclear power stations. Three advanced technologies, that's pretty good.
- UltraSane 2y agoThey are trying. Microsoft wants to star the 3 Mile Island reactor. And other companies have been signing contracts for small modular reactors. SMRs are a perfect fit for modern data centers IF they can be made cheaply enough.
- jonisgold 2y agoI think this is right- data centers powered by fission reactors. Something like Oklo (https://oklo.com https://oklo.com) makes sense.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bakuninsbart 2y agoWind, solar, and gas are all significantly cheaper in Texas, and can be brought online much quicker. Of course it wouldn't hurt to also build in some redundancy with nuclear, but I believe it when I see it, so far there's been lots of talk and little success in new reactors outside of China.
- cameldrv 2y agoOne possibility would be just to build their own power plants colocated with the datacenters and not interconnect at all.
- zekrioca 2y agoI like how you think this is possible.
- cameldrv 2y agoLol, how is it not possible?
- zekrioca 2y agoIt is, but at what cost?
- cbozeman 2y agohttps://www.global.toshiba/ww/products-solutions/nuclearenergy/research/safety-reactor.html https://www.global.toshiba/ww/products-solutions/nuclearener... Two Toshiba 4S reactors at the 50 MW version can cost about $3,000,000,000. Two of those produces 100 MW. They don't require refueling for around 30 years. $6,000,000,000 to power a 100 MW datacenter when we're talking about $500,000,000,000 is not too dramatic. Especially consider the amortized yearly cost.
- zekrioca 2y agoThat's not how you calculate these things. Check [1] for an overview, specifically Page 9. Note these metrics do not include costs to handle nuclear waste, passed over into the future (at least 1000y). [1] https://www.lazard.com/media/gjyffoqd/lazards-lcoeplus-june-2024.pdf https://www.lazard.com/media/gjyffoqd/lazards-lcoeplus-june-...
- cameldrv 2y agoMaybe they could build nuclear but they could just as easily build solar with battery backup or natural gas. Lots of industrial facilities have natural gas cogeneration with the grid as a backup. If you can't get a grid connection at all due to permitting, you could just forego the backup. The reliability wouldn't be as good, but in a distributed datacenter there are ways of building in fault tolerance. If these guys really have $500 billion, they're going to find a way to get electricity.
- cavisne 2y agoGas turbines can be spun up really quickly through either portable systems (like xAI did for their cluster) [1] or actual builds [2] in an emergency. The biggest limitation is permits. With a state like Texas and a Federal Government thats onboard these permits would be a much smaller issue. The press conference makes this seem more like, "drill baby drill" (drilling natural gas) and directly talking about them spinning up their own power plants. [1] https://www.kunr.org/npr-news/2024-09-11/how-memphis-became-a-battleground-over-elon-musks-xai-supercomputer https://www.kunr.org/npr-news/2024-09-11/how-memphis-became-... [2] https://www.gevernova.com/gas-power/resources/case-studies/tm2500-birr-switzerland https://www.gevernova.com/gas-power/resources/case-studies/t...
- thepace 2y agoIt is not the just queue that is the bottleneck. If the new power plants designed specifically for powering these new AI data centers are connected to the existing electric grid, the energy prices for regular customers will also get affected - most likely in an upwardly fashion. That means, the cost of the transmission upgrades required by these new datacenters will be socialized which is a big problem. There does not seem to be a solution in sight for this challenge.
- einrealist 2y agoThat‘s why the tech oligarchs told Trump that Canada is required. Cheap hydroelectric power…