SMRs, the perfect solution to energize data centers

Most of us don't think about the huge data centers that enable our constant use of the Internet. But they are an essential structure for our civilization, and they consume enormous amounts of electricity 24/7.

Powering these data centers is quickly becoming an issue. Northern Virginia, for example, is home to the largest concentration of data centers in the world. Tech giants like Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and Google have invested $126 billion in Virginia data centers. And the region's insatiable appetite for electric power continues to grow due to increased demand for cloud computing services.

Without reliable power, cloud service providers cannot grow as demand increases. But the electricity grid can't keep up. At present, power transmission bottlenecks in Northern Virginia could delay development of new data centers until 2026.

Data center developers in Europe are facing the same problem. Microsoft and Amazon have halted plans to build new data centers in Dublin, Ireland due to power shortages and the threat of blackouts. British officials have suspended construction of new homes in west London until 2035 because data centers had already exhausted local loop capacity.

And it's not just energy consumption that's sparking opposition to data centers. Concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, water use, noise pollution and the overall sustainability of data centers are fueling local opposition limiting data center construction, or even deployment.

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook have responded to the demand for clean energy by investing heavily in wind and solar projects. But wind and solar alone cannot solve the problem. These energy sources are unable to guarantee the uptime that data centers need. Think of the 2021 European wind power crisis which reduced wind power in the UK by 32% for 6 months. The need for 24-hour operation presents a serious, perhaps insurmountable, obstacle for data centers that rely exclusively on energy sources such as wind and solar that do not generate power at night, on cloudy days or when the wind does not blow.

Some hope that we will eventually be able to store excess wind and solar energy in batteries. But the reality is that batteries are too expensive to store enough energy to provide reliable power for weeks (not to mention months) of uncooperative time.

The good news is that there is a solution, a source of energy reliable enough to provide low-cost, zero-emissions 24-hour operation: a small on-site nuclear power plant dedicated to providing power to a data center.

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) provide between 10 and 300 MW of power 24/7. A data center powered by an SMR would no longer have to compete for energy with local communities. No more waiting for new transmission lines or power plants to be built. And no more emissions. If we consider the entire life cycle of different energy sources (including extraction, production and disposal), solar emits four times more carbon than SMRs.

SMRs differ from large conventional nuclear power plants like modern smartphones differ from older rotary phones. Conventional plants are large and complicated, and their construction is made expensive by cumbersome European and US regulations. Two units (1,117 MW each) currently under construction in the US state of Georgia cost more than $30 billion. Their construction is also six years behind schedule, and by the time they finally go live in 2023, they will have taken 14 years to complete. These types of costs and delays are a capital risk factor for large conventional nuclear plants.

Large nuclear reactors also require very large land surfaces. They typically require more than 350 acres and usually need to be located near a lake, river or ocean to access water for cooling. They also do not recycle spent fuel.

SMRs are simpler and much cheaper to build. Available components and factory prefabrication bring construction costs to $60 million. SMRs have a small footprint: around 4000 m2 for the smallest reactors, equal to less than 0.5% of the land used by traditional reactors. Most of them do not use water for cooling and therefore should not be located near lakes, rivers or oceans. They can be installed on-site or at a nearby location in less than a year, and developers don't have to put capital at risk because some SMR companies offer Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).

Oklo, for example, owns and operates the power plant and sells clean energy 24/7 at costs equal to or less than traditional energy sources. Oklo's streamlined regulatory approach and extensive experience working with the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission minimizes the time required to obtain an operating license. The expected time to go from a signed PPA to powering up the servers (including licenses, permits, and construction) is two to three years. Furthermore, SMRs can be designed to recycle spent fuel, both its own and that from large nuclear power plants. So this solution, and not wind turbines, is the optimal solution for data centers. The only problem is: who will take responsibility for making them, and managing them, first?

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The article SMRs, the perfect solution to energize data processing centers comes from Scenari Economici .

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This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/gli-smr-la-soluzione-perfetta-per-dare-energia-ai-centri-elaborazione-dati/ on Sun, 16 Apr 2023 16:09:07 +0000.