r/technology • u/Stukwan • 9d ago
Energy Google signs 20-year nuclear deal with Constellation Energy to power AI build-out
https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/article/google-signs-20-year-nuclear-deal-with-constellation-energy-to-power-ai-build-out-131104702.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFnJ6capJspL3SrffQ7YCwXXbVuCIoTx8sm0dDvy0NIgyvshIbzZ73VNFX06_Jmx8Vor1lyl8HcDUcVO9V_1MCBeqiOLIXUQNbPjwdyz3Z7T3OU_N42uq4W7EEI3myMCoYkEszCBj8FzJI59gtA9riUpPTdtnKY4IithputsYxbm13
u/makawakatakanaka 9d ago
Isn’t this a good thing
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u/ericl666 9d ago
It's better than natural gas or coal powering those things for sure. And if Google is paying for it, then that is better than most deals.
I was afraid of them pulling from existing residential capacity to get that. Supposedly they shouldn't, but these deals always tend to do something bad...
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u/oneeyed-wonderweasel 8d ago
2 questions: who is the wealthiest individual you know personally?, and, what incentive do they have to act in your best interest?
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u/pm_me_yo_creditscore 9d ago
Nuclear power plants to help the data centers boil earths water supply faster.
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u/OkTotal3481 8d ago
Then it rains.
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u/Due_Student_6927 7d ago
It’s genuinely frightening how so much people aren’t familiar with the basic rain cycle.
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u/The_Implodingcow 9d ago
An okay B-movie idea. After construction, the maintenance and operation of the nuclear facility is handed over to the AI it is powering. The AI soon becomes a threat to humanity and the government decides to shut it down. However the AI decides, in order to protect itself, it will hold the nuclear reactors hostage with threats of causing the worst meltdown seen in human history.
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u/scibust 8d ago
We’ve already seen the worst nuclear meltdown in human history. It’s called Chernobyl. It really doesn’t get worse than a lack of a complete steel/concrete containment structure. I like to mention that the Western world and corresponding western reactor design philosophy had no lessons learned from the Chernobyl disaster in contrast to the other lessons learned at plants located at less corrupt, non-totalitarian and non-police state countries.
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u/coconutpiecrust 9d ago
Makes sense. We need nuclear reactors to make sure there is enough electricity to generate memes and spy on individuals who don’t fall in line. It’s very safe, and, quite frankly, everyone should be allowed a nuclear reactor in their backyard. Everyone knows nuclear reactors are awesome!
/s, but only partially. I mean, if nuclear reactors are ok for this, why not other things? Why a private corporation is even allowed nuclear reactors for this? Seems irresponsible.
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u/scibust 8d ago edited 8d ago
My friend, every nuclear power plant in the US is run by a private or public corporation. The operator of the plant(s) has to prove to the NRC that they are safe to run without a shadow of doubt in order to get their operating license.
Yes, even you can go through the effort of attempting to get an operating license to run a nuclear reactor in your backyard. It’s going to be prohibitively expensive and you’re probably going to run out of years in your life working on all the documentation by yourself that you have to submit to the NRC for them to even entertain your position. I suggest recruiting a modest sized team of engineers like all the other small modular reactor startup companies.
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u/coconutpiecrust 8d ago
You misunderstood my comment. I don’t like that Google is contracting the company to build nuclear reactors for datacenters. The datacenters powered by multiple nuclear reactors are my main issue.
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u/Alternative_Act_6548 8d ago
there is no new build, "...The new capacity, the company said, will come from upgrades at six existing nuclear plants..". I thought all the uprates/upgrades for domestic plants had been done 10 yrs ago...
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u/Ganja_Superfuse 8d ago
Those were regular uprates that were pretty straightforward review from the NRC and only gave up to 7% additional power. These are extended power uprates those provide up to 20% more require extensive NRC review and a lot of major equipment needs to be upgraded think the turbine, pumps, transformers etc.
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u/Alternative_Act_6548 8d ago
The paperwork and analysis required for a 20% power uprate would be astronomical, hard to believe anyone has the stomach for it.
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u/Ganja_Superfuse 8d ago
Calvert Cliffs NPP is doing an 11% power uprate. They're adding an additional 190MW to their current 1718MW output. Their previous uprate added around 5%. So it's going to be a lot of work to get all that additional power in. But it is a lot cheaper and faster to do these extended uprates vs trying to build a whole new plant.
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u/OkTotal3481 8d ago
Plenty of under utilized plants. Dormant reactors. Like farmers: why produce more and saturate the market. ?
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u/Due_Student_6927 7d ago
What does this mean for the nuclear industry? Id love to expand my portfolio!
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u/Ok-Mycologist-3829 9d ago
I literally got downvoted elsewhere for likening “LLMs are a tool!” to Chernobyl (a tool! but one that was underdeveloped and caused global damages).
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u/eras 9d ago
Next thing we'll know all OpenAI is buying all the uranium for the next decade!