How Electric Utilities Will Handle Booming AI Datacenter Demand | Odd Lots

For years and years, utilities in the US haven't seen much growth in electricity demand. The economy is generally mature and has been able to grow even without needing much more electrical power. But all that's changing now and a big contributing factor is the boom in datacenter demand. It's particularly acute for AI datacenters, which need more power than traditional datacenters, and are growing like crazy ever since ChatGPT brought generative AI to everyone's collective consciousness. So how will utilities handle the sudden surge in load growth? On this episode, we speak with Brian Janous, co-founder and chief strategy officer at Cloverleaf Infrastructure. Brian spent 12 years at Microsoft, where he was the company's first ever energy-focused hire, so he has seen the rise of datacenter electricity consumption first hand, and how AI is kicking it up even further. He now works alongside utilities to figure out how they'll meet this growing demand. We talk about how there's likely to be more gas plants being built, how datacenters and utilities can get more energy out of existing infrastructure, the politics of AI datacenters, and what this all means for the net-zero commitments of major tech companies.
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[@Sokrabiades]

The irony about nuclear is that it was shut down largely due to environmental concerns in the 1980s, just as global warming was beginning to be discussed.

[@user-xq1wz3tp5z]

It is true that there were environmental concerns ... but the reason why there was a cessation in deployment, was due to the fact that when problems occurred (at 3 Mile Island a pump motor failed to start Or shut down), the control panels did not issue clear, accurate indications which could inform the trained operators what was happening, and how to react (at 3 Mile Island, the reactor core was uncovered by water before the operators figured out what had happened, over a few very expensive hours). In early 80s the plants were only online half the time; by mid/late 80s, the control problem had largely been solved by AEC/NRC, so that by late 80s, the plants were operational more than 90% of the time. Long term storage of high level waste is still somewhat problematic, but significant progress has been made.

[@Sokrabiades]

This really is a fantastic podcast.

[@stevengill1736]

Add this to EV demands....yikes. Definitely time for more steam! 😊

[@michaela.abbott222]

Mr. Wonderful/Kevin O'Leary says worldwide need for AI is only at 8%. Each 100MW data center costs $3.6B.

[@martalli]

Whadya know, EVs aren't the actual problem for the energy grid.