That's where the resources are. You wouldn't expect some uber wealthy billion dollar company to have to provide power/water needs way out in the middle of nowhere would you?
You can use fuel cells; I'm sure external steam reforming based hydrogen (in protein exchange membrane fuel cells) works very well, but I'd not be surprised if some hydrocarbon or alcohol fuel cell beats it in TCO; also I'd expect liquid oxygen to be readily suited to be trucked-in with the fuel they feed these turbines and by the power of a simple dry heat exchanger exchanging between ambient air and combustion "air" they could use exhaust gas recirculation with pure (other than the exhaust gas diluting it so the flame doesn't melt the turbine blades) oxygen which would as a side-effect allow them to condense out water to obtain nearly pure CO2 exhaust.
Liquid oxygen is around 100$/ton and you need 3.21 tons of it to burn one ton of methane. If you use kerosene instead you're at about 2.58 tons of oxygen per ton of fuel.
Note that the absence of nitrogen otherwise plentiful in combustion air eliminates NOX formation.
What they do for the oxygen production is they condense air and then distill it; IIRC it's mainly done for steel production where they use it to burn off carbon dissolved in molten iron. It's side product liquid nitrogen and argon are primarily produced from this but are mostly considered side-products of the "oxygen refining".
Thanks for the information. I never knew about those kinds of fuel cells and they look like an excellent alternative.
From what I've just read, the only real downsides other than initial cost are slow startup time (hours) and they are physically larger than gas turbines. In exchange for a higher upfront price, you get a more efficient and reliable power generator. Very cool.
100% true yet even when you solve this (for example with clean hydro in the northwest), you make zero progress with the anti-datacenter people.
America is huge. Why do they need to be constructed next to people's homes?
That's where the resources are. You wouldn't expect some uber wealthy billion dollar company to have to provide power/water needs way out in the middle of nowhere would you?
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Right, as with almost everything with people, it's an emotional reaction (fear) with a thin layer of rationalization on top.
This applies to the billionaire class as well. Such as having to beat China in AI race the tech CEOs started.
Is there a better alternative for on-demand, on-location power generation?
You can use fuel cells; I'm sure external steam reforming based hydrogen (in protein exchange membrane fuel cells) works very well, but I'd not be surprised if some hydrocarbon or alcohol fuel cell beats it in TCO; also I'd expect liquid oxygen to be readily suited to be trucked-in with the fuel they feed these turbines and by the power of a simple dry heat exchanger exchanging between ambient air and combustion "air" they could use exhaust gas recirculation with pure (other than the exhaust gas diluting it so the flame doesn't melt the turbine blades) oxygen which would as a side-effect allow them to condense out water to obtain nearly pure CO2 exhaust. Liquid oxygen is around 100$/ton and you need 3.21 tons of it to burn one ton of methane. If you use kerosene instead you're at about 2.58 tons of oxygen per ton of fuel.
Note that the absence of nitrogen otherwise plentiful in combustion air eliminates NOX formation.
What they do for the oxygen production is they condense air and then distill it; IIRC it's mainly done for steel production where they use it to burn off carbon dissolved in molten iron. It's side product liquid nitrogen and argon are primarily produced from this but are mostly considered side-products of the "oxygen refining".
Thanks for the information. I never knew about those kinds of fuel cells and they look like an excellent alternative.
From what I've just read, the only real downsides other than initial cost are slow startup time (hours) and they are physically larger than gas turbines. In exchange for a higher upfront price, you get a more efficient and reliable power generator. Very cool.