from NoTricksZone
Author: P. Gosselin
Germany's green movement was largely driven by activists who opposed nuclear power in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, Germany has shut down its entire fleet of nuclear reactors and is working to use renewable energy sources, mainly wind and solar, to maintain power.
Today, German activists are focused on shutting down remaining fossil fuel power generation, which under normal circumstances would make nuclear power attractive again. But not so for fundamentalist environmental fans. However, if they want to continue enjoying the conveniences of the modern digital world and smartphones, they may need to give in.
Here's the news coverage of the blackout. “Following Oracle and Microsoft, Google also plans to use nuclear power to power its data centers.” Obviously, wind and sunlight simply cannot meet the requirements. Without nuclear energy, CO2 neutrality would not be possible.
“Google leadership confirmed that the company is developing large-scale data centers that will require more than 1 gigawatt of power. Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai gave a speech at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh last week to discuss the potential use of small modular nuclear reactors (small reactor) is used to generate electricity,” Blackout News quoted a powermag report.
According to reports, Google is currently forming a team to study alternative energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide, and plans to use small modular nuclear reactors to power its artificial intelligence data center.
“We are now developing data centers with over 1 gigawatt of power. Two years ago, we couldn’t have imagined this, and it all requires energy,” Pittsburgh’s Pichai said.
Today, many of Google's data centers operate on an approximately 90% CO2-free basis. But without cores, 100% implementation seems impossible.
Pichai said he thinks money will be put into small reactors… for nuclear power, and he's optimistic that energy needs will be met in the medium to long term.
As artificial intelligence develops, so does interest in data centers, which require large amounts of power to operate. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison plans to invest more than $10 billion to build data centers, and Microsoft plans to restart the reactor at Pennsylvania's decommissioned Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to meet the energy needs of artificial intelligence.
Microsoft said last week it hopes to restart reactors at Pennsylvania's shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to meet its artificial intelligence needs. The company said in January that a demonstration project in Wyoming as part of a partnership with Caterpillar and Ballard Power shows how hydrogen fuel cells can power data centers,” powermag reports here.
Amazon Web Services plans to purchase power from the 2.5-gigawatt Susquehanna nuclear power plant for its nearby data center campus.
Big tech companies' turn to nuclear power to power their data centers shows that green energy sources like wind and solar alone cannot meet the energy needs of the modern digital world.
Read the full article on powermag.
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