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Alternatively the crisis can be used to accelerate right development - quickly build up solar farms and transmission lines. Both of these can be done quickly if

• PunchyHamster 4mo ago
  solar farms are worst kind of power source for constant loads like datacenters running AI training
  • spacington 4mo ago
    Solar power still can take a certain amount of load from any other source and saving money and CO2 while doing so. And grid battery works and is cheap enough now.
  • actionfromafar 4mo ago
    That's why we are getting clean, beautiful coal the likes of which nobodys ever seen before!
  • alex_duf 4mo ago
    I'm hoping the kind of gas turbines being installed on these datacenters are capable of quickly responding to a load change, meaning the primary source of energy could be solar during the day and complement when there isn't enough energy. But I haven't looked into where these datacenter are being placed, I'm assuming that although solar is cheap now, the surface needed would make the purchase of nearby land probably not worth it. These new categories of datacenters are becoming very energy dense...
  • trhway 4mo ago
    you're just incorrect. You probably missed 2 points : - battery storage - and in the article "However, AI labs and some hyperscalers have relaxed those requirements as there is now a lower uptime tolerance applied to both inference and training, not just training. Many of Meta’s self-built AI datacenters, for example, target just two nines of uptime and forgo backup generators entirely, as detailed in our Industrials Model."
  • numpad0 4mo ago
    but you can't trust especially hyperscalers with securely sealed HEUs in shipping containers
  • adornKey 4mo ago
    Why? Unlike loads involving a real physical process there is absolutely no need for AI-training to be constant.
    • pu_pe 4mo ago
      If you invest into chips that deprecate in value really fast, not utilizing them to their full capacity because of power constraints would be counter productive.
    • everfrustrated 4mo ago
      You are correct in the sense that they can stop work in a way many generic server use cases can't (which is seen in lowering power supply reliability requirements as the article mentions), but running expensive servers at 50% utilization would dramatically affect the revenue generated per capital invested - IE you couldn't afford to buy the servers.
      • ZeroGravitas 4mo ago
        If it just costs more, similar to how it's possible to have a low water use datacenter, then in a perfect spherical cow economic universe then the lower cost option is better. In the real world you'd need to add some cost to account for the externalities on water and GHG. Do the numbers still work out for the gas powered plant? If not then you're just exploiting unaccounted for externalities.
• clarionbell 4mo ago
  I like how balanced their energy mix is. It is very obvious that China is optimizing for capacity and availability. There isn't really a push for clean energy sources for political, or climate, reasons. They are deployed when it makes sense, backed up by robust coal and nuclear sources. In Europe, we approach energy generation as a political, or climate problem. We are building solar and wind power sources, not to make energy cheaper, or to make grid more resilient, but to fulfill an ideological goal. The results are, not great, to be honest. The energy prices have increased substantially, and are now driving our chemical industry bankrupt. Edit: I do not dispute the climate change. I am only highlighting impacts of current policy.
  • trhway 4mo ago
    >I like how balanced their energy mix is. It is very obvious that China is optimizing for capacity and availability. There isn't really a push for clean energy sources for political, or climate, reasons. They are deployed when it makes sense, backed up by robust coal and nuclear sources. yes, they don't seem to fall for the "solar is unstable" trap and recognize new reality - the solar + wind smoothed by nuclear/gas is the new baseline To the comment on the coal below : not really. You don't need that much as a smoothing capacity.
    • boelboel 4mo ago
      You mean + coal, they don't have a meaningful amount of nuclear (just under 5% of electricity mix and 2% of energy). 50% of electricity is coal.
  • deleted 4mo ago
    [deleted]
  • toast0 4mo ago
    China is building all types of generation because they are rapidly growing their electric network (generation doubled from 2014 to 2024). Europe's generation is roughly flat during the same period. It doesn't make sense to build a lot of everything in a system without growth in generation. Replacing decommisioned generators would be enough. Growth in solar and wind generation (for ideological or economic reasons) means there's less reason to build new capacity of other types. There's complications there with firm vs intermittent capacity, but that's a different discussion. US electrical generation was also flat from 2000 to 2020, but seems to be growing again since then, but not anywhere near China's growth rate.
• spacington 4mo ago
  Yeah and the richest person on the planet with full vertical integration (with partner) Elon musk and Tesla aka solar roof and power wall wants to sell DC in space and hasn't fixed any use of gas turbine for Colossus 1&2. Without enforcement it will happen continuously with snail pace
• cloudie78 4mo ago
  Right off the top of my head, to power a 500MW Datacenter we need: 2.2-2.5 GWdc solar capacity which at 600W/panel amounts to 14-17sq mi plus additional 8-12GWh of storage to deal with nighttime, two-three days of cloud cover is not going to work with these numbers. Ballpark 5-7BN$ Nuclear otoh, 1GW continuous - gives constant power, badly managed first of a kind (or first one after decades) build will be at around 10-15BN and that’ll cover two 500MW data centres. There’s also the second/third degree order effects nuclear power stations have of creating jobs and industrial manufacturing demand. To run a nuclear power station you need to employ 1000 people (engineers plus support staff) - that’s a small town’s worth of adults. So you’ll need a town with a school, hospitals, stores - those need staffing as well. Unfortunately building nuclear is not something that’s currently a feasible path as it requires patient capital and long term vision and planning. So gas turbines it is at around ~1BN$
  • psd1 4mo ago
    > is not something that’s currently a feasible path as it requires patient capital and long term vision and planning HN arguing in favour of a planned economy - see, we aren't free-market cultists!
• stouset 4mo ago
  If we build a terawatt of green energy capacity then turn around and immediately use it for datacenters rather than to replace fossil fuel generation, we haven’t gained anything. If anything we’ve lost out.
  • polski-g 4mo ago
    You gained the datacenter, which is providing a highly desired service... Are you European?
    • stouset 4mo ago
      Personally I prefer a livable climate and affordable power over yet another datacenter for AI or mining crypto.
• leonidasrup 4mo ago
  Proponents of solar power always like to equate 1 GW of solar power capacity with 1 GW of wind power capacity or 1 GW of thermal power capacity, ignoring capacity factors, ignoring need for reliable backup. Sometimes they ignore the transportation costs, as for example: capital costs for transporting 1 GW of electricity over 1,000 km using High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) technology costs more then the 1 GW peak solar power plant attached to the power line. China builds everything solar, coal, wind, hydro, nuclear. So if you want follow the example of China, then you have to, like China, build everything and don't just pick one part of Chinas energy strategy. Also I would not present China as an example of market capitalism, they have a very strong government capitalism. Probably the strongest government capitalism in the world.