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From a different perspective: the fact US businesses can assemble massive power plants on demand, in weeks, is quite an illustration of the economic dominance o

From a different perspective: the fact US businesses can assemble massive power plants on demand, in weeks, is quite an illustration of the economic dominance of the country.

hnthrow90348765 1y ago
[flagged]
smartmic 1y ago
If you mean the financial power to pay for such power plants, then I agree. But the technical capabilities to quickly provide stationary or mobile power plants can be purchased from a few large, international companies; noteworthy suppliers can be found in the USA, Europe and Asia. And they will build it for you in almost any country in the world, as I said, provided you pay accordingly. Of course, the delivery time of turbines is often a bottleneck, but this applies more to the very large ones than the smaller ones that should actually be installed here (and it also applies equally to all manufacturers).
ben_w 1y ago
16.48 MW each: https://www.shelbytnhealth.com/DocumentCenter/View/7174/01156-01PC-070225Permit?bidId= https://www.shelbytnhealth.com/DocumentCenter/View/7174/0115... They're big, by the standard of a domestic source such as a car, but they're not what I'd call "massive" in an economic dominance sense. About the size of a large shipping container, give or take, eyeballing from other photos that tell me which objects the turbines even are: https://www.capacitymedia.com/article/musks-xai-data-centre-allegedly-running-illegal-gas-turbines https://www.capacitymedia.com/article/musks-xai-data-centre-...
- perihelions 1y ago
  It's a large power plant (400+ MW and rising), rapidly assembled from small, modular components. That's a remarkable thing from any point of view. The other threads on this topic (powering AI hyperscalers) are usually about nuclear fission, which most of the large players are investing in. Those power plants often take 10+ years to build. One could imagine small reactor modules akin to these 16 MW shipping containers, built in factories and shipped on demand like these, to be assembled into a full power plant in weeks. If someone were to get that business model working, they'd dominate the industry. (Just how big of a premium did xAI pay their vendor, to have all this shipped halfway around the world on a priority schedule?)
  - blibble 1y ago
    given musk's attitude to the waste management (just pump it into the lungs of the local population), god help us if he gets access to nuclear reactors
    - glowiefedposter 1y ago
      [dead]
    - steelbrain 1y ago
      > just pump it into the lungs of the local population Source please? I'm not aware of this
      - roxolotl 1y ago
        SpaceX: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna166283 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna166283 Tesla: https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/elon-musk-tesla-environment-1263cd60 https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/elon-musk-tesla-environme... Of course XAI is this article we’re all commenting on but here’s an older one: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memphis-gas-turbines-air-pollution-permits-00317582 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...
        inemesitaffia 1y ago
        Lara Kolodnys article claiming there's Mercury in the water? That's the article you linked?
  - rsynnott 1y ago
    There’s a reason this isn’t generally done for real power plants; these little turbines are pretty inefficient. This sort of thing is not uncommon for data centers and other things that need either a lot of backup power or a lot of temporary power, but it would not make for an economically viable power plant.
  - ben_w 1y ago
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
blackbear_ 1y ago
Source for the timeline? Nowhere in the article is it said that the construction happened within weeks.

From a different perspective: the fact US businesses can assemble massive power plants on demand, in weeks, is quite an illustration of the economic dominance of the country.

hnthrow90348765 1y ago

[flagged]

smartmic 1y ago

If you mean the financial power to pay for such power plants, then I agree. But the technical capabilities to quickly provide stationary or mobile power plants can be purchased from a few large, international companies; noteworthy suppliers can be found in the USA, Europe and Asia. And they will build it for you in almost any country in the world, as I said, provided you pay accordingly. Of course, the delivery time of turbines is often a bottleneck, but this applies more to the very large ones than the smaller ones that should actually be installed here (and it also applies equally to all manufacturers).

ben_w 1y ago

16.48 MW each: https://www.shelbytnhealth.com/DocumentCenter/View/7174/01156-01PC-070225Permit?bidId= https://www.shelbytnhealth.com/DocumentCenter/View/7174/0115... They're big, by the standard of a domestic source such as a car, but they're not what I'd call "massive" in an economic dominance sense. About the size of a large shipping container, give or take, eyeballing from other photos that tell me which objects the turbines even are: https://www.capacitymedia.com/article/musks-xai-data-centre-allegedly-running-illegal-gas-turbines https://www.capacitymedia.com/article/musks-xai-data-centre-...

perihelions 1y ago
It's a large power plant (400+ MW and rising), rapidly assembled from small, modular components. That's a remarkable thing from any point of view. The other threads on this topic (powering AI hyperscalers) are usually about nuclear fission, which most of the large players are investing in. Those power plants often take 10+ years to build. One could imagine small reactor modules akin to these 16 MW shipping containers, built in factories and shipped on demand like these, to be assembled into a full power plant in weeks. If someone were to get that business model working, they'd dominate the industry. (Just how big of a premium did xAI pay their vendor, to have all this shipped halfway around the world on a priority schedule?)
- blibble 1y ago
  given musk's attitude to the waste management (just pump it into the lungs of the local population), god help us if he gets access to nuclear reactors
  - glowiefedposter 1y ago
    [dead]
  - steelbrain 1y ago
    > just pump it into the lungs of the local population Source please? I'm not aware of this
    - roxolotl 1y ago
      SpaceX: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna166283 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna166283 Tesla: https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/elon-musk-tesla-environment-1263cd60 https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/elon-musk-tesla-environme... Of course XAI is this article we’re all commenting on but here’s an older one: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memphis-gas-turbines-air-pollution-permits-00317582 https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/06/elon-musk-xai-memph...
      - inemesitaffia 1y ago
        Lara Kolodnys article claiming there's Mercury in the water? That's the article you linked?
- rsynnott 1y ago
  There’s a reason this isn’t generally done for real power plants; these little turbines are pretty inefficient. This sort of thing is not uncommon for data centers and other things that need either a lot of backup power or a lot of temporary power, but it would not make for an economically viable power plant.
- ben_w 1y ago

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

blackbear_ 1y ago

Source for the timeline? Nowhere in the article is it said that the construction happened within weeks.