Comment by myaccountonhn
4 months ago
> In an October letter to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recommended that the US add 100 gigawatts in energy capacity every year.
> Krishna also referenced the depreciation of the AI chips inside data centers as another factor: "You've got to use it all in five years because at that point, you've got to throw it away and refill it," he said.
And people think the climate concerns of AI are overblown. Currently US has ~1300 GW of energy capacity. That's a huge increase each year.
100GW per year is not going to happen.
The largest plant in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China at 22GW and it’s off the scales huge. We’re not building the equivalent of four of those every year.
Unless the plan is to power it off Sam Altman’s hot air. That could work. :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations
China added ~90GW of utility solar per year in last 2 years. There's ~400-500GW solar+wind under construction there.
It is possible, just may be not in the U.S.
Note: given renewables can't provide base load, capacity factor is 10-30% (lower for solar, higher for wind), so actual energy generation will vary...
> It is possible
Sure, GP was clearly talking about the US, specifically.
> just may be not in the U.S.
Absolutely 100% not possible in the US. And even if we could do it, I'm not convinced it would be prudent.
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I am a huge proponent of renewables, but you cannot compare their capacity in GW with other energy sources because their output is variable and not always maximal. To realistically get 100GW in solar you would need at least 500GW of panels.
On the other hand, I think we will not actually need 100GW of new installations because capacity can be acquired by reducing current usage by making it more efficient. The term negawatt comes to mind. A lot of people are still in the stone age when it comes to this even though it was demonstrated quite effectively by reduced gas use in the US after the oil crisis in the 70s. Which basically recovered to the pre crisis levels only recently.
High gas prices caused people to use less and favor efficiency. The same thing will happen with electricity and we'll get more capacity. Let the market work.
> China added ~90GW of utility solar per year in last 2 years. There's ~400-500GW solar+wind under construction there.
Source?
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Background: I live within the US Federal Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a regional electric grid operator. The majority of energy is generated by nuclear + renewables, with coal and natural gas as peakers. Grid stability is maintained by among the largest batteries in the world, Racoon Mountain Pumped Storage Facility.
Three Gorges Dam is capable of generating more power than all of TVA's nuclear + hydro, combined. In the past decade, TVA's single pumped-storage battery has gone from largest GWh/capcity in the world to not even top ten — largest facilities are now in China.
µFission reactors have recently been approved for TVA commissioning, with locations unconfirmed (but about one-sixth the output of typical TVA nuclear site). Sub-station battery storage sites are beginning to go online, capable of running subdivisions for hours after circuit disconnects.
Tech-funded entities like Helios Energy are promising profitable ¡FusioN! within a few years ("for fifty years").
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All of the above just to say: +100GW over the next decade isn't that crazy a prediction (+20% current supply, similar in size to two additional Texas-es).
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr...
Amazing that 4 of the top 5 are renewables in China.
> As of 2025, The Medog Dam, currently under construction on the Yarlung Tsangpo river in Mêdog County, China, expected to be completed by 2033, is planned to have a capacity of 60 GW, three times that of the Three Gorges Dam.[3]
Meanwhile, “drill baby drill!”
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Does that cout the dams that flood valleys and displace thousands of people, plants, and animals from their homes?
Not really that surprising.
Authoritarianism has its draw backs obviously but one of its more efficient points is it can get things done if the will is at the top. Since China doesnt have a large domestic oil supply like the US it is a state security issue to get off oil as fast as possible.
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It's amazing what a dictatorship can do when it's not captured by oil interests and Israel.
Because its cheaper. That's it.
New datacenters are being planned next to natgas hubs for a reason. They’re being designed with on site gas turbines as primary electricity sources.
Natural gas production has peaked: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=66564 (see second graph)
Planning gas turbines doesn't help much if gas prices are about to increase due to lack of new supply.
New Zealand put in peaker gas turbines, but is running out of gas to run them, so its electricity market is gonna be fucked in a dry year (reduced water from weather for hydro):
https://www.mbie.govt.nz/dmsdocument/31240-factsheet-challen...
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Gigawatts? Pshaw. We have SamaWatts.
LOL, maybe Sam Altman can fund those power plants. Let me guess: He'd rather the public pay for it, and for him to benefit/profit from the increased capacity.
Big tech is going to have to fund the plants and probably transmission. Because the energy utilities have a decades long planning horizon for investments.
Good discussion about this in recent Odd Lots podcast.
I've read a bunch of the opposite: a lot of secret deals between tech companies and utilities, where when details come out, we find that regular ratepayers are going to be paying a decent chunk of the cost.
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Good discussion? This is a Bloomberg podcast with ads from Palantir explicitly telling us AI is not here to replace any of us. They do everything they can to avoid the topic of what the cost is to regular people.
Data centers are built in people's backyards without their permission, wreck the values of their home, and then utility companies jack up their price to compensate for the extra strain on the grid. So the residents have to pay for Big Tech but get no share of the profits. How this podcast does a whole episode on data centers and the electricity grid and doesn't talk about what's actually happening to people, well, that would be surprising if I didn't know where it came from.
Scam Altman wants the US to build a lot of energy plants so that the country will pay the costs and OpenAI will have the profits of using this cheap energy.
If we moron our way to large-scale nuclear and renewable energy rollout however..
I highly doubt this will happen. It will be natural gas all the way, maybe some coal as energy prices will finally make it profitable again.
If for no other reason than they're actively attacking renewable capacity even amid surging demand
This admin has already killed as much solar and wind and battery as it can.
The only large scale rollout will be payment platforms that will allow you to split your energy costs into "Five easy payments"
Guess who's going to pay nothing for power? Hint: it's not you, and it's not me.
There's a reason Trump is talking about invading Venezuela (hint: it's because they have the largest oil deposits).