AI data centers are forcing dirty ‘peaker’ power plants back into service

[MKWVentures]

To quote myself, and my answer to your questions:



I wish I was trying to be humorous.

Exactly. Decide what you are going to do and live with the consequences. If you want datacenters, build them. If you don't, then other countries can build them and they can control datacenters.

The US decided not to build nuclear plants and not to dam rivers over the last 30 years. Thats fine.... now that leads to other decisions.

 

[KevinK]

None other than the socialist Robert Reich (former US Sec of Labor) and constant critic of capitalism (at when he doesn't personally benefit) is one of the most famous NIMBY people going on record for opposing more dense or more affordable housing in Berkeley, because it would negatively impact the character of the community.

We have NIMBY “protectors” of all political persuasions who keep us from building - Reich’s protecting us from student noise pollution, ranchers and farmers protecting us from transmission lines and high speed rail, Native Americans and allies protecting us from pipelines, and the current administration protecting us (plus whales and birds) from windmills (though seemingly offshore oil drilling is no threat whatsoever).

 

[Xebec]

Glass half full - at least AI seems to be marginally more useful than cryptomining that is *still* growing in energy use (and environmental impact).

Environmental impact of bitcoin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Emptying the glass..

I personally think humans won't get serious about pollution until it's impacts are truly catastrophic. (Increases in cancer rates and chronic disease for humans and dying animal/plant species and food chain impacts aren't enough for people to generally notice).

AI power demands may accelerate that timetable a little bit..

 

[lispwright]

The US decided not to build nuclear plants and not to dam rivers over the last 30 years. Thats fine.... now that leads to other decisions.

The end of damming rivers started in the 1960s, the complete until very recently end of licencing new nuclear power plants began with breaking out the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from the Atomic Energy Commission in 1975.

Another gambit that prevented, damaged, or destroyed projects like NH's Seabrook was too many states changing their laws so a utility had to borrow up front the money for the construction of new plants instead of charging their customers as they progressed.

So half a century of energy poverty, then you have to factor in the deliberate, burn your boats destruction with explosives coal baseline power plants with limited replacements of natural gas fired ones, including some plants converting their boilers.

Thus your question:

What does the electricity use trend look like in the US for the past 25 years?

can't easily be answered as big consumers of electricity adopted to the regime risk of US. E.g. 1980 to the last few years primary aluminum production went from 33% to 2% of the world's output, 4.65 million to 785,000 metric tonnes, per an AI aided search.

Unless you build very expensive storage systems, renewables are a hindrance to operating a grid, providing neither baseline or peaking power. A great deal of this has simply come out of grid reserves, I'm very happy to be in the Southwest Power Pool which has the highest of all the nation's reserves, currently somewhere around the traditional 17% if I remember a list of them all correctly, although that's going down.

 

[Xebec]

Thus your question:can't easily be answered as big consumers of electricity adopted to the regime risk of US. E.g. 1980 to the last few years primary aluminum production went from 33% to 2% of the world's output, 4.65 million to 785,000 metric tonnes, per an AI aided search.

Unless you build very expensive storage systems, renewables are a hindrance to operating a grid, providing neither baseline or peaking power. A great deal of this has simply come out of grid reserves, I'm very happy to be in the Southwest Power Pool which has the highest of all the nation's reserves, currently somewhere around the traditional 17% if I remember a list of them all correctly, although that's going down.

I agree with your overall sentinment/post, but renewables not being able to baseline or handle peak power ignores how far grid-scale battery technology has come along, especially LFP based batteries from China. True you can't easily go 100% renewable because of the weather, but peaker plants exist for the same reason - because you need some level of redundancy even when you're depleting finite resources to provide power.

Grid sized batteries can also help double (or more) the available energy from fossil fuel and nuclear sources too as you could run a power plant at 100% longer while storing the energy for high demand times.

Take a look at some of the 'megapack' projects from Tesla (and others) and the economics - especially in Australia and the US. The cost per MwH of storage is about 10% what it was 10-12 years ago, and that's with the batteries lasting longer (both calendar aging and ability to handle higher daily cycle counts).

On the overall cost argument -- in the US at least, fossil fuels are heavily subsidized by the US government (see the US military defense budget for details). If there were truly zero subsidies for both fossil fuels and renewables, I think renewable sources (including batteries -- which can be recycled) would compete well.

OT I wish we'd take nuclear more seriously as a power source. It feels like there's a lot more safety and overall efficiency that can be engineered than even the advanced stuff we have today.

 

[blueone]

I agree with your overall sentinment/post, but renewables not being able to baseline or handle peak power ignores how far grid-scale battery technology has come along, especially LFP based batteries from China. True you can't easily go 100% renewable because of the weather, but peaker plants exist for the same reason - because you need some level of redundancy even when you're depleting finite resources to provide power.

Actually, peaker plants exist so you can build base-load generation to some calculated level, like the 95th percentile load, rather than the 100th percentile load. For generation agencies and companies, this reduces the cost of the base load plants, and saves fuel costs for fossil fuel plants because peaker plants can quickly started and shut off, while base load plants usually run at one speed (redline) and can't be easily or quickly shutdown and restarted.

Grid sized batteries can also help double (or more) the available energy from fossil fuel and nuclear sources too as you could run a power plant at 100% longer while storing the energy for high demand times.

Valid point, but base load plants generally run only at one level. What you describe is the theory behind pumped hydropower.

On the overall cost argument -- in the US at least, fossil fuels are heavily subsidized by the US government (see the US military defense budget for details). If there were truly zero subsidies for both fossil fuels and renewables, I think renewable sources (including batteries -- which can be recycled) would compete well.

How are fossil fuels subsidized in the defense budget? (I know the answer, and I think you're making a political statement, not a factual argument.)

Actually, the USG subsidizes all (most?) mineral extraction with what's called a "depletion allowance". Last I looked, lithium has a higher depletion allowance than oil and gas.

And don't ask me to defend US tax codes. I'm starting on my income tax preparations for 2025, and nothing I'm thinking should be shared with polite company, not even you guys.

OT I wish we'd take nuclear more seriously as a power source. It feels like there's a lot more safety and overall efficiency that can be engineered than even the advanced stuff we have today.

Agreed.