Emerging AI Will Crush Renewable Energy

Common standards of consumption could become realistic. That itself would relieve the energy and other problems. So-called "a. i.", used with genuine intelligence, could very well help with conservation. These two possibilities alone would add up to peace and prosperity, if the vested interests now running things allow. Breath is not being held.

 

Centralized power is not in the interests of the human spirit. Oil puts a very few at the center of too much influence. Nuclear simply shifts the center.

 

AI power demands alone will be an order of magnitude beyond what is generated now. Then there's all the other stuff . . . .

 

The devil is in the tales.

 

Inexpensive energy available 24/7 is definitely in the interests of the human spirit and condition which go hand in hand.

 

Some leading AI players are trying to hide their change of direction.
Big Tech On The Path To Net Zero: The Story With Amazon And Apple
July 17, 2024/ Francis Menton

• 
  Before everything got disrupted by the attempt on President Trump’s life, I had written a post last week titled “Big Tech On The Path To Net Zero.”
  
  
• That post looked at the most recently issued “sustainability” reports from Google, Microsoft and Meta, and noted that all three admit to going rapidly in the opposite direction from “net zero.” As their businesses grow in the direction of power-hungry data centers and AI, they inevitably require large incremental amounts of always-available electricity — the kind of electricity that wind and sun cannot provide. Lacking viable alternatives to fossil fuels, their “emissions” rise.
  
  
• But, you might ask, how about Amazon and Apple?
  

READ MORE

". . . But, you might ask, how about Amazon and Apple? They too put out annual “sustainability” reports. Here is the “2023 Amazon Sustainability Report” (that appears to have just been issued); and here is the “Apple Environmental Report covering fiscal year 2023,” that came out in April. Unlike the similar Reports issued by Google, Microsoft and Meta, these Amazon and Apple Reports do not admit to lack of progress (let alone negative progress) on the “net zero” goal. Are they being honest?

The answer is that these Reports from Amazon and Apple are substantially less honest than the efforts of Google, Microsoft and Meta. Amazon’s Report follows the general pattern of the Google, Facebook and Meta Reports, with happy talk in the introduction and summaries and then some potentially real information buried deep in the interior. Apple’s Report is the worst of the lot, and can best be described as an effort at deception and misdirection. Let’s take a look. . . ."

 

We had that and all it led to was waste and pollution and too much dependence. That is not in the interests of the human spirit.

 

The globe has never been cleaner. Wealth increases raises the standard of living as well as provides the means to keep the planet clean. IMO most people's spirit thrives on free discretionary time to do what the spirit moves them to do. If you want to go out in the woods and live off the grid so be it.

 

Investors have noted the AI-nuclear symbiotic relationship.
AI Is Giving Nuclear Power a Lift. Here's 4 Stocks Riding the Trend
Avi Salzman, Barron's

 

Renewables can't do the job.
Can American Conservation Survive ‘Green’ Energy?
By Portia Roberts
A future with denser, cleaner urban footprints that preserve natural habitats requires that we continue to decrease the natural resources and land we consume, particularly with our population predicted to peak…
". . . In total acres used per megawatt, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power have tiny footprints compared to wind and solar. A solar power plant typically requires 5 to 10 acres per megawatt while a natural gas plant uses less than a half an acre per megawatt. These estimates don’t even account for the increases in land mined for the necessary metals and mining. . . . "

 

More evidence that renewables can't do the job.
New EPA Rules Could Dangerously Close Baseload Power Plants
By Bernard L. Weinstein
In reality, baseload, dispatchable power—namely coal, nuclear and large gas-fired plants—will remain the backbone of America’s energy supply for the foreseeable future. . . .

 

AI will exacerbate the shortcomings of already marginal grids.


Washington State ‘Increasingly at Risk’ for Rolling Blackouts
August 16, 2024

Guest Post by TJ Martinell
Editors’ note: This guest post from The Center Square discusses the problems contributing to the Pacific Northwest’s power shortage issues, including increased electrification, aging infrastructure, and overreliance on renewables without suitable backup. Climate Realism has written on this threat previously, as the entire American grid is similarly threatened.

(The Center Square) – A proposed battery energy storage system near Goldendale under consideration by the Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council would, if ultimately approved by Gov. Jay Inslee, be able to provide 200,000 homes with electricity for up to four hours.

It’s a facility that Washington residents might need if the state is unable to meet future energy demands, which the company behind the project warns is growing more likely.

Tenaska is an independent power company based out of the Midwest and behind the proposed $250 million BESS, which would store excess electricity generated by the grid for later use. In an Aug. 13 presentation to EFSEC, company officials cautioned that “the region is increasingly at risk for rolling blackouts and brownouts,” which it blames in part to “aging transmission infrastructure that cannot meet current or projected demand.”

However, the presentation also noted that “data centers in the PNW, which are notorious for high energy use, are expected to more than double their electricity use in the coming years.”

Another contributor is the state’s transportation electrification efforts, with a ban on new fossil fuel vehicles taking effect in 2030. Currently, there are roughly 90,200 battery electric vehicles registered in Washington. Last year, light-duty electric vehicles consumed about 309,000 megawatt hours of electricity.

The dilemma facing Washington is twofold. The first is that its energy grid will require an additional 5,300-gigawatt hours by 2030 and 13,500 GWh by 2045 to meet demand, according to Tenaska’s presentation; one gigawatt is enough electricity to power 750,000 homes.

By 2050, electrical load growth is anticipated to increase by 92% compared to 2020 demand.

The second dilemma is that the new electricity must be from sources that conform to the state’s Clean Energy Transformation Act, which stipulates that utilities cannot use coal-based electricity starting next year, and by 2030 they can only use carbon neutral sources. By 2045, the energy will need to be from 100% renewable or “non-emitting” sources.

While Tenaska aims to have the BESS built in one year and operational by 2026, EFSEC has struggled to get final approval for a project that would generate clean energy needed to meet future demand. The Horse Heaven Energy Center was scheduled to begin construction in 2021 but has faced numerous delays, the latest of which came in May when Inslee sent the project back to EFSEC to increase its size and scope.

According to Inslee’s letter to the council, the original project would have generated 1,150 megawatts of electricity, 5% of the total needed to meet 2035 demand. Inslee wrote that 20 projects of similar energy generation will need to be built by 2035 if the state is to meet demand.

An E3 study released in 2019, the same year the law was enacted, warned that the Pacific Northwest region faced a near-term capacity shortage of up to 7,000 MW by 2025 and up to 10,000 MW by 2030.

“Planned resource additions do not fill this gap,” the study noted, adding that one of the causes of the energy gap was “renewable and storage additions with diminishing capacity benefit.”

A Pacific Northwest resource adequacy study released by E3 in March 2019 concluded that “it is possible to maintain resource adequacy for a deeply decarbonized Northwest electricity grid, as long as sufficient firm capacity is available during periods of low wind, solar, and hydro production” and that “natural gas generation is the most economic source of firm capacity today.”

Originally published by The Center Square. Republished with permission.

 

Natural gas and nuclear point the way to the future.
Natural Gas Is Our Clean Energy Standard - Hayes & Nash, RCEnergy

 

Get in on the ground floor.
AI Is Giving Nuclear Power a Lift. Here's 4 Stocks Riding the Trend
Avi Salzman, Barron's

 

AI is in. Renewable energy is out.
Power Demand Is Soaring. We Need Every Tool Available to Meet It.
By Rich Nolan
U.S. electricity demand is going to double by 2050 and meeting that soaring demand is going to require the equivalent of building 300 Hoover Dams. . . .

". . . the electricity demand gamechanger is the explosive growth of AI and the enormous data centers needed to support it.

Running an internet search using AI consumes more than ten times as much energy as a traditional Google search. And the type of processor needed to run AI uses as much power as an average American home. . . . "

 

The corporate retreat from renewables is under way.
How it ends: 96% of Big Corporations are quietly abandoning their climate commitments


By Jo Nova

And then the climate pledges evaporated
The Tech-Giants are backing away. Microsoft and Google have given up — they’re not bragging about their carbon neutrality anymore. Not now that their emissions have increased 29% and 50% respectively in the last four or five years. Over 500 companies pledged to get to net zero by 2040, but 96% of them are failing to stay on track. To distract us from talking about how the Climate Bubble has popped, some are blaming “AI”.

The world is facing mass death and boiling oceans, and wind and solar are still as cheap as they never were, but Big Tech are sneaking away from saving the world, wait, because Artificial Intelligence uses a lot of electricity? It’s like, these CEOs were saviors of Mother Earth not long ago, but the ice-caps be damned, there’s a race on to capture the AI market? Apparently, the planetary heroes just turned back into robber barons doing business.

Dr Jemma Green, who sells software for renewables markets, is trying to sell us a bad-luck story, as if it makes any sense. The truth is that if net zero technologies were cheap and useful, and the CEO’s ever cared about the planet, they wouldn’t be abandoning them. But they are…

Why Big Corporations Are Quietly Abandoning Their Climate Commitments?
Jemma Green, Forbes

AI’s energy hunger and corporate climate hypocrisy

…corporations like Google, Microsoft, and Shell once positioned themselves as leaders in sustainability, setting ambitious net-zero goals to align with global environmental efforts. However, the rapid rise of energy-hungry artificial intelligence is forcing these companies to reconsider—or even abandon—these commitments…

Corporate climate pledges surged recently, with over 500 companies globally committing to net-zero emissions by 2040. This momentum continued between June 2022 and October 2023, with a 40% increase in new net-zero targets. Yet, as the AI revolution gains traction, cracks in these promises are beginning to show. Recent analysis reveals that only 4% of these companies are on track to meet their goals, highlighting a disconnect between corporate rhetoric and reality.

Despite the headline, Jemma Green isn’t even trying to explain “Why” the end is here. After a few paragraphs blaming AI she laments how other giants like Shell, or Gucci, or EasyJet are stepping away too from their goals too, poking a hole in her thesis that it was only due to AI. It’s not like Gucci want to sell you AI programs to wear. . . .

 

Nuclear power will dominate the 21st century, and beyond.
Nuclear power stations can be a beautiful part of the environment.
Dr Kelvin Kemm
Since nuclear is completely clean and green, emitting no gasses, liquids, or anything else, during normal operations, there is no reason why nuclear power stations must be viewed as ugly…

Over the past 25 years, the world electricity demand doubled. All indications are that it will double again over the next 25 years. In fact, the time span is likely to be much shorter. The emergence of more electricity-intensive consuming technologies such as data centres is causing electricity demand to rise more steeply. Then one must add the rising demand of developing countries in which. People are moving from cooking dinner over an open fire outdoors to acquiring an electrical stove and fridge.

The image of electricity demand is a large boulder rolling down a hill, it is not stopping or slowing. In fact it is rolling faster and faster.

Without doubt fossil fuels will continue to be the backbone of world electricity generation for decades to come. But equally certain is that nuclear power is making a rapid advance across the globe. That means not only for the traditional large, industrialised countries, but also for the less developed, or much smaller countries. Rapid development of Small Modular Reactor technology is also accelerating the options for the adoption of nuclear power on a large scale. South Africa was the first country in the world to start developing a commercial Small Modular Reactor, and has continued with the work for over 30 years.

Some years ago, South Africa announced its intention to add an additional 2500 MW of new nuclear to its existing nuclear base. Early in 2024, the energy minister confirmed the acceleration of this goal. The intention, from inception, was to build a new 2400 MW coastal nuclear plant, but also to dedicate 100 MW to the development of SMR’s for inland use. In September 2024, the energy minister gave a public address in which he stated that we must go ahead on the basis of science and facts, and not be ‘fighting in the mud’ with activists who rely more on emotion than reality.

South Africa is forging ahead with a new nuclear build. This is excellent news. The current initiative is for an additional 2500 MW of nuclear, composed of a 2400 MW new large nuclear power station on the coast, plus 100 MW dedicated to Small Modular Reactor (SMR) development.

The announcement of the continuation of the project was greeted with applause by many, but as always, the anti-nuclear lobby were frothing at the mouth about all the imagined problems associated with nuclear power.

But let us digress for a moment, to consider the macro-implications of this initiative.

Building a large nuclear plant is essentially following in the footsteps of the traditional route, that being; placing a large plant on the coastline at an ideal site. The resulting power is then transmitted over some distance to consumers.

But what of SMR’s? The crucial difference with a gas-cooled SMR, which does not need a large body of water for cooling purposes, is that you can take the reactor to the consumer. You can place the rector anywhere you like. This reality enables planners to embrace. Embark on a highly flexible. Nuclear solution across the entire country.

Think about it!

Let us now make a comparison with a cell phone system. Prior to the advent of cell phones, a telephone network consisted of major exchanges, interconnected by means of long-range connections. Then cell phones arrived. The cells are something like the honeycomb of a beehive, and each cell has its own main base station antenna. Each cell handles calls within the cell.

The emergence of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) systems onto the modern scene, essentially makes a nuclear cell system a reality. One can now place a gas-cooled SMR anywhere, and it can serve its own ‘cell.’ This ‘cell’ could be a mining complex, a municipality, a collection of factories, or an agricultural area encompassing the farm, proceeding to processing, packaging, and transport. Such a ‘cell’ does not even need to be connected to the National Grid, and can be owned by a Province, Municipality, or private company. . . .

 

AI is driving the nuclear renaissance.
Three Mile Island Nuclear to Restart for Microsoft
Charles Kennedy, Oil Price

 

Big Tech is moving toward nuclear energy. AI is the driving force.
Germany Risks being Left behind…Big Tech Confirms CO2 Neutrality Only Possible With Nuclear Power
By P Gosselin on 1. October 2024

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.

 

AI and nuclear power go hand-in-hand.

Nuclear: SMR Revolution Is Arriving Soon
Robert Eccles, RCEnergy

It’s been a big year for nuclear energy in the U.S. The Department of Energy has allocated a large amount of capital to nuclear energy research and has committed $900 million to advance Gen III+ (more on them below) small modular reactors (SMRs). The Inflation Reduction Act’s inclusion of nuclear energy has opened opportunities for tax credits for investors in nuclear projects. Southern Company’s Vogtle plant’s second new reactor started sending power to the grid in April.

Most recently, on September 20, Microsoft and Constellation announced that they will reopen a reactor at Constellation’s Three Mile Island nuclear energy center in Pennsylvania to power Microsoft data centers. Microsoft agreed to pay $16 billion to restart the Unit 1 reactor which has a capacity of 835 megawatts. It was shut down in 2019 under financial pressure from growing competition with cheap natural gas. (The Unit 2 reactor was destroyed in 1979 accident and is undergoing decommissioning; however, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC) noted there were no deaths or accidents, or discernible health effects from some small radioactive releases.) Microsoft has agreed to buy up to 100% of the electricity produced by Unit 1. This is part of the tech giant’s efforts to secure enough reliable, low-carbon electricity to supply its energy-thirsty data centers powering the boom in artificial intelligence. . . .

 

More information on Three Mile Island.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/artific...#:~:text=The news that,on-site representative.

 

Here's an example "ripped from the headlines."
A utility promised to stop burning coal. Then Google and Meta came to town.
Eliminating toxic emissions at an Omaha plant conflicted with a competing priority: serving massive, power-hungry data centers that the utility helped recruit to the region.
By Evan Halper

 

Nuclear power is the inevitable accompaniment to AI.
Big Tech and Nuclear Power
Ryan Browne, CNBC

 

Investors have noticed the AI-nuclear synergy.
AI Is Giving Nuclear Power a Lift. Here's 4 Stocks Riding the Trend
Avi Salzman, Barron's

 

Nuclear power is ascendant.
Microsoft, Three Mile Island Deal a Blow to Wind, Solar