could be
gates has made it clear he believes nuclear is a huge part of reducing co2
he has a few bets/investments with nuclear power/energy research
i was going to mention something about tax write-offs, but decided not to
I haven't followed Gates' investment in nuclear power research lately, but I'd be very interested to see ANY near-term design offer realistic construction cost projections. The Vogtle plant in GA went massively over budget and was years late.
I used to be in Data Centers and we looked at this ~7 years ago. At the time it really made a lot more sense to locate in a high sunshine area with cheap land and do big solar arrays with some wind as well if the geography worked. Nuclear has a lot of potential, but only if your scale is larger than a massive array can handle or scale to. I recall the break point was around 200-250 megawatts.
you are also making a tradeoff on if it more cost effective to move power over a distance or data over a distance. Data is generally easier (light or microwave), but takes time (measured in milliseconds). Normally that's not a big deal, but financial guys will spend millions (multiple / hundreds) for a few milliseconds. So this makes me think that a lot of what is going on is financial. Or this is just PR / Buzzword bingo.
could be
gates has made it clear he believes nuclear is a huge part of reducing co2
he has a few bets/investments with nuclear power/energy research
i was going to mention something about tax write-offs, but decided not to
I used to be in Data Centers and we looked at this ~7 years ago. At the time it really made a lot more sense to locate in a high sunshine area with cheap land and do big solar arrays with some wind as well if the geography worked. Nuclear has a lot of potential, but only if your scale is larger than a massive array can handle or scale to. I recall the break point was around 200-250 megawatts.
you are also making a tradeoff on if it more cost effective to move power over a distance or data over a distance. Data is generally easier (light or microwave), but takes time (measured in milliseconds). Normally that's not a big deal, but financial guys will spend millions (multiple / hundreds) for a few milliseconds. So this makes me think that a lot of what is going on is financial. Or this is just PR / Buzzword bingo.
I imagine the pool of experts is low seeing that this technology was pretty much all but dead till recently. It would be nice to see this succeed and more folks copy the application.
Location: Around My Corner... and Up Yours Gender:
Posted:
Feb 2, 2023 - 6:40am
miamizsun wrote:
a plan or option to repurpose coal fired power plants?
came through my yt feed and seems plausible
Fascinating information. These modular reactors look to be a planet saving energy solution. The only issue that wasn't covered is nuclear waste. Where do they put it? Can science and technology find a way to recycle it?
More reading to be done at the NRC, and tons more here.
really informative interview with dennis whyte
i'd listen to all of it if possible
however someone has broken it down quite nicely into byte sized clips
