[gazpacho]

I just wish we forced every new data center to be built with renewables or something. The marginal cost over a conventional data center can’t be that big compared to the total cost, and these companies can afford it. Maybe it can help advance the next generation of small modular nuclear reactors or something.

[phil21]

Many of these companies are very interested in small nuclear tech as a means to power these facilities. The major bottleneck now for most of them is finding sites where grid capacity exists to power them.

Talking to anyone in the space for more than 30 minutes and nuclear with come up.

I very much hope the hype cycle lasts long enough for some of this capital raining down from the sky to get these reactors deployed in the field, because those will be a lasting positive from this hype cycle - much like laying railroad infrastructure and fiber optic cables came from other hype cycles.

I've often said that the robber barons sucked, but at least they left massive amounts of physical infrastructure for the average person to benefit from. The hype cycles of late leave very little in comparison.

[ikr678]

I'm concerned that the move-fast-and-break-things crowd will attempt to ply their trade on reactor tech and leave us with a bunch of failed projects in jurisdictions that won't hold them to account. The space is heavily regulated for a reason.

[sailingparrot]

> I just wish we forced every new data center to be built with renewables or something.

Already the case in Europe. And in the US, most of the biggest player are doing this: Google, Microsoft, Meta, AWS. By now those 4 are the largest buyers of renewable purchase agreement in the entire world. MS alone invested something like 20B in renewable purchase.

But the issue is that installation of renewable in the US is not bottlenecked by lack of demand, it's bottlenecked by permitting, zoning issue etc. The queue for power deployment right now is something like 100GW (i.e. how much production is paid to be built, but not yet built), that is around 10% of the current total US power capacity. So it's not really clear to me if buying more renewables helps making it's deployment faster through economies of scale, or if the purchase order is just sitting in a queue for years and years.

One notable exception is xAI/Grok, who has one of the biggest cluster, is powering it 100% with gas and afaik did not offset it by buying the equivalent in renewable. Having built the cluster in a what was a washing machine factory that does not have adequate power supply or cooling tech, they have been rolling in 35 mobile gas turbines (large trailer trucks that you connect to gas pipes) and 50+ refrigeration trucks. IMHO, it should be illegal to build such an energy consuming system with such a poor efficiency, but well.

[jjk166]

At least in the US, it doesn't need to be forced. In 2024 94% of new US powerplant capacity in the US were renewables or battery storage, we're on track for 93% for 2025, and based on announced plans the next few years will see very similar numbers. What few fossil fuel power plants are being built are exclusively natural gas, and a decent number of them are conversions of former coal plants to natural gas. Planned additional natural gas plant capacity is lower than at any point since the shale revolution started. Renewables have won.

[jillesvangurp]

No need. Renewables are already the cheapest way to power them. Companies like X using gas generators aren't doing that because it's cheaper but because it's faster. They need power now, not in five years. They will in the end replace those with something cleaner as a cost optimization. But they just don't want to wait for that.

Data centers and energy infrastructure investments go hand in hand. A lot of that money is actually being allocated for energy infrastructure. Because a data center is useless if you can't power it. That is also why companies like Amazon and MS are investing in nuclear. They need large amounts of cheap power to lower their energy bills long term and they need to secure access to energy supply. They see nuclear as a way of getting that. Coal and gas is just too expensive and undesirable. There's not enough of it and it's expensive to operate. Renewables & clean power (including nuclear here) is what they want really.

What would actually help is making the permitting around renewables and nuclear faster and more efficient. The energy demand is there. And that includes from data centers. And the capital is there. It's just that energy projects are bottle-necked on bureaucracy. Many countries have loads of viable energy projects stuck in their planning pipelines. For example, it takes years to get a grid connection for new wind or solar plants that can otherwise be built and delivered in less than a year. And likewise it takes years to get construction projects approved. This also affects investments in grid infrastructure. That's nuts. These countries have energy shortages that are slowing down their economic growth. And the capital to fix that. It's just that they are blocked on their own bureaucracy.

Unlike data centers, investments in energy infrastructure provide decades of return of investment. These are long term investments. Even if AI flops (which I think is hard to argue given how useful it is already), we get to keep the energy infrastructure. And we'll find a way to repurpose those data centers. I don't see that as a write off either.

[loeg]

Data centers want firm power to avoid underutilizing expensive assets. Solar and wind are intermittent. New gas has a years-long lead out. 12+ hours of batteries (solar in winter) are, in fact, not free or de minimis.

[bpodgursky]

These companies would all LOVE to use small modular nuclear reactors in their datacenters... if the NRC ever got around to approving a license for one.

[loeg]

People like the idea of economical SMRs, but it seems unlikely they will ever be economical. There's no real reason not to just build LMRs instead (e.g., AP1000).

[jraph]

I wish the hardware itself were renewable too.

[nocsi]

Why renewables? These guys don't have an energy problem. The states have made sure give them energy credits and other assurances on that. The problem they do have though is siphoning the water from everyone around them.

Microsoft actually has a design for mini datacenters that stay cool in the ocean and collect tidal energy. But it's way more fun to have states trying to court you into building datacenters cause it'll bring some jobs.

[loeg]

Actually energy is a real problem for them and water consumption isn't.

[Difwif]

If energy wasn't a problem then they could just recirculate a coolant