Essay by Eric Worrall
First published JoNova; I wonder how many fossil fuel plants and nuclear reactors are required to service 99GW of new energy demand?
Texas Needs Equivalent of 30 Reactors to Meet Data Center Power Demand
Demand on the Texas power grid is expected to expand so immensely that it would take the equivalent of adding 30 nuclear plants’ worth of electricity by 2030 to meet the needs.
Author of the article:
Bloomberg News
Naureen S. Malik…
The data centers “present a reliability risk to the Ercot system,” said Springer, who spoke on a panel at Infocast’s ERCOT Market Summit in Austin this week.
“We’ve never existed in a place where large industrial loads can really impact the reliability of the grid, and now we are stepping into that world.”
Risk of Grid Stress
Ercot said it’s gotten requests equal to 99 gigawatts for new connections to the grid from big power users, including data centers, bitcoin miners and hydrogen producers, according to an internal grid presentation Thursday. That’s up from 40.8 gigawatts last March.
…
It’s not just Texas. Across the world, new nuclear and fossil fuel capacity is being frantically constructed, by companies and governments who are frightened of falling behind.
No state is immune to this pressure. My prediction, even über green states like California will shortly cave and permit providing the gigawatts of cheap, dispatchable energy big tech requires to stay in the game, from any source available – fossil fuel, nuclear, imported, whatever they can get their hands on.
The USA isn’t the only player in town. China is going all in on artificial intelligence. Their disadvantage of being subject to sanctions is more than balanced by their enormous low cost computer chip industry and their energy surplus.
China announces high-tech fund to grow AI, emerging industries
By Nectar Gan and Juliana Liu, CNN
Published 4:30 AM EST, Thu March 6, 2025Hong KongCNN —
Fresh off the global success of DeepSeek’s latest artificial intelligence reasoning model, China’s top economic officials have vowed to set up a state-backed fund to support technological innovation.
The “state venture capital guidance fund” will focus on cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology and hydrogen energy storage, Zheng Shanjie, head of China’s state economic planner, told reporters Thursday on the sidelines of the annual gatherings of China’s rubber-stamp national legislature and advisory body.
The fund is expected to attract nearly 1 trillion yuan ($138 billion) in capital over 20 years from local governments and the private sector, added Zheng, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.
…
India is also going big on AI;
India’s US$1.25 billion push to power AI
National funding to enhance computing infrastructure, deep-tech startups and data platform
India is ramping up its artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem with a US$1.25 billion (Rs 10,372 crore) investment to expand its computing infrastructure and develop an accessible data repository.
Through public-private partnerships, IndiaAI Mission plans to set up a computing capacity or ‘compute’ of 10,000 or more Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Over the next five years, it will build a platform stacked with non-personal data, such as environmental data, for Indian startups and researchers.
…
India’s AI market, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 25-35% is expected to touch $US17 billion by 2027, fuelled by a growing AI workforce and an increase in generative AI investments.
…
Read more: https://www.nature.com/articles/d44151-024-00035-5
Europe is showing a flicker of interest, though they are so far behind in the cheap energy game, it is doubtful if they will ever catch up. France is the only European nation which appears to be taking AI seriously.
France tempts AI firms with its nuclear electricity
Tuesday, 11 February 2025
UK-based AI cloud provider Fluidstack has signed a memorandum of understanding with the French government to construct one of the world’s largest decarbonised AI supercomputers in France. Meanwhile, utility EDF has identified four sites on its own land that it will offer for data centres.
Announced at the AI Action Summit in Paris, under the leadership of President Emmanuel Macron, the memorandum of understanding was signed by the French Minister of Economy, Finance, and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, Eric Lombard, the French Minister for Industry and Energy, Marc Feracci, and Fluidstack co-founder and President, César Maklary.
…
Read more: https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/france-tempts-ai-firms-with-its-nuclear-electricity
If you are interested in why AI requires so much energy, this article provides some answers – and you get to play with a real artificial intelligence.
There is no chance the AI push will fizzle. Certainly the current wave contains a lot of hype, in the next few years we shall see the usual bankruptcies as companies riding the wave but with nothing substantial to offer run out of shareholder’s cash. But the underlying technology is sound. Companies are already making enormous profits using artificial intelligence to perform accelerated drug discovery and repurposing, intelligence analysis, semantic analysis and collation of news and events, and bringing greater than human capabilities to forward planning, strategy and scientific research.
At least one political leader gets it.
In this race, there is no prize for second place.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
via Watts Up With That?
March 7, 2025 at 01:03PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 