In an opinion piece at the start of the year, my colleague Mark O’Connell reflected that recent advances in artificial intelligence are both a technological and societal inflection point. He noted the extraordinary energy requirements of the vast server farms and data centres that enable the technology, observing that Ireland plays a crucial but disproportionate role in this new industry. By the end of this decade, the technology may drain a full one-third of our electricity into this “cloud” infrastructure, at a time when this newspaper is editorially calling into question the political courage to act on the climate crisis.
In the United States, data centres currently consume about 4 per cent of the national load. However, a December report by Grid Strategies, a power sector consultancy in Washington DC, predicted that US data centres would at least double this amount by 2030, comprising most of the forecast 16 per cent growth in national consumption.
Top tier cloud providers are taking steps to underpin energy supplies for their US-based server farms and data centres, chiefly focusing on a revival of investment in nuclear power.
Last March, Amazon bought a data centre near Berwick, Pennsylvania, along with 300MW of power drawn directly from the adjacent Susquehanna nuclear plant, thus bypassing the national grid. Amazon subsequently requested a further 180MW directly from the plant, but the US Federal Energy Commission rejected the application after petitions from other power utility companies, in part because Amazon would avoid fees for investment in the national grid.
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In September, Microsoft and Constellation Energy announced plans to recommission Unit 1 of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, also in Pennsylvania, owned by Constellation but closed in 2019 for commercial reasons and after the US’s worst-ever commercial nuclear reactor crash in 1979, at Unit 2. Microsoft will draw a 835MW load for its data centres, under a 20-year purchase commitment.
As well as leveraging existing nuclear infrastructure, the cloud providers are deeply interested in the potential of small modular reactors (SMRs). An SMR is a miniature nuclear reactor, up to about 300MW, mass-produced to a consistent standard and sufficiently diminutive to be easily transported in a small number of shipping containers. Several units can be co-located at a site as needed to build higher capacity over time.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that some 25 countries are investing in SMR technology. As yet, only a small number of government-funded units are operational: two on barges in Pevek in the Russian Federation and, in China, one in Shandong and a research SMR at Tsinghua University in Beijing. However, the agency records 68 alternative designs active globally, with a number soon expected to be operational.
[ David McWilliams: Case for nuclear power is strongest since time of OppenheimerOpens in new window ]
In October, Google announced a 500MW agreement for a fleet of SMRs by 2030 from Kairos Power, a California-based start-up. Two days later, Amazon led a $500 million financing of X-energy, an SMR start-up in Rockville, Maryland, working on an 80MW gas-cooled design.
Meanwhile OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman is chairman and an investor in Oklo, another California-based SMR start-up. Amazon also has a partnership with a Virginia utility, Dominion Power, for an SMR initiative near Dominion’s existing North Anna nuclear plant, and another project with Washington State’s Energy Northwest utility for a further four SMRs.
Advocates believe that SMRs, in principle, can be built and operated more cheaply and efficiently than conventional nuclear plants. Some, including Oklo, intend to recycle spent nuclear fuel from conventional plants as their fuel supply. Most use passive thermal management systems which in the event of some failure should result in the hot reactor core cooling naturally, reducing the possibility of thermal runaway or a detonation. In consequence, proponents argue that the large physical containment structures and elaborate cooling edifices of traditional large nuclear plants are unnecessary.
However, a number of observers believe SMRs may increase the amount of nuclear waste requiring long-term storage, in part because of contamination from neutron leakage. Reduced physical containment structures and proximity of SMR sites to population centres might also make them attractive terrorism and sabotage targets, thus requiring investment in permanent armed security personnel and extensive protections against hacking.
[ Just because Ireland is good for data centres does not mean they are good for usOpens in new window ]
In Ireland, the increasingly disproportionate load on the Irish grid imposed by data centres may some day force a reconsideration of our national ban on nuclear energy. The Irish Academy of Engineering has already recommended that Ireland consider SMRs as a part of its decarbonisation strategy. One wonders what the Government response would be if a top-tier cloud vendor asserted that their continued presence in the State now depended on them being allowed to co-locate SMRs from their nuclear supply partner alongside their Irish data centres.
As our editorial stated, Government partners need resolve to act on the climate crisis, and data centres are a critical aspect of the challenge. Without meaningful action, Ireland may have to purchase as much as €20 billion of carbon credits in just five years time. That €13 billion tax windfall from Apple last September may turn out to be absolutely invaluable.
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