Germany’s green movement was propelled mainly by activists opposed to nuclear power in the 1980s and 90s. Since then, Germany has shut down its entire fleet of nuclear power reactors and is struggling to keep the lights on with renewable energy, mainly wind and sun.
Today German activists are focused on shutting down the remaining fossil fuel power, which in a normal world would make nuclear power attractive again. But not for the fundamentalist enviro-nutjobs. However, they may need to give in if they want to continue enjoying the amenities of the modern digital world and smartphones.
Blackout News here reports. “After Oracle and Microsoft, Google also plans to power its data centers with nuclear power.” apparently, wind and sun just don’t make the grade. CO2-neutrality just won’t be possible without nuclear power.
“Google’s leadership confirms the company is working on large-scale data centers that require over 1 gigawatt of electricity. Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, spoke last week at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh about the potential use of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) for power generation,” reports Blackout News, citing powermag.
According to reports, Google is currently forming a team to research alternative energies without CO₂ emissions and plans to use small modular nuclear reactors to power its AI data centers.
“We are now working on data centers with over 1 gigawatt of power. Two years ago, we wouldn’t have imagined that, and all of that requires energy,” said Pichai in Pittsburgh.
Today, many of Google’s data centers operate on a basis of about 90 percent CO2-free. But 100% won’t be possible without nuclear, it appears.
Pichai said he sees money going into SMRs …for nuclear energy and that he’s optimistic about the medium to long term energy needs being met.
As AI expands, so is the interest in data centers, which require enormous amounts of power to operate. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison plans to invest more than 10 billion dollars in building data centers and Microsoft aims to restart the reactor at the decommissioned Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania to meet the energy requirements for AI.
“Microsoft last week said it wants to restart a reactor at the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania to power its AI needs. The company in January said a demonstration project in Wyoming, as part of a collaboration with Caterpillar and Ballard Power, showed how hydrogen fuel cells can provide power for a data center,” reports powermag here.
Amazon Web Services plans to buy power from the 2.5-GW Susquehanna nuclear plant for its nearby data center campus.
Big Tech’s move to nuclear energy to power its data centers show that green energies like wind and sun alone cannot meet the energy needs of our modern digital world.
Read entire article at powermag.
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