Monday, September 25th 2023
Microsoft Plans to Build Nuclear-Powered Data Centers
Data center infrastructure is a complex matter. It requires shelter, cooling, and dedicated power generators that keep the servers running at full capacity and uptime. However, as these data centers can consume MegaWatts of power, it is becoming increasingly more work for hyperscalers like Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and others to ensure proper power supply to their data centers. Today, according to the job listing by Microsoft, we learn that the Redmond giant is preparing its infrastructure for nuclear power to reduce data centers' dependency on the outside grid. According to the job listing, Microsoft is seeking a "Principal Program Manager, Nuclear Technology, who will be responsible for maturing and implementing a global Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and microreactor energy strategy."
The SMR and microreactor systems are smaller-scale than traditional nuclear reactors that many power plants are using today and are more manageable due to their sheer size. The power plants based on the aforementioned technology can reside right next to the data center. We are sure that Microsoft had calculated the return on investment (ROI) of creating its power grid, as its electricity consumption will only increase in the coming years as the infrastructure expands. P. Todd Noe, director of nuclear technologies engineering at Microsoft, shared a note regarding the listing, stating: "This is not just a job, it is a challenge. By joining us, you will be part of a global movement that is transforming the way we produce and consume energy. You will also have the chance to grow your skills, advance your career, and make an impact on millions of lives." Below, you can see an example SMR from NuScale.
Source:
DatacenterDynamics
The SMR and microreactor systems are smaller-scale than traditional nuclear reactors that many power plants are using today and are more manageable due to their sheer size. The power plants based on the aforementioned technology can reside right next to the data center. We are sure that Microsoft had calculated the return on investment (ROI) of creating its power grid, as its electricity consumption will only increase in the coming years as the infrastructure expands. P. Todd Noe, director of nuclear technologies engineering at Microsoft, shared a note regarding the listing, stating: "This is not just a job, it is a challenge. By joining us, you will be part of a global movement that is transforming the way we produce and consume energy. You will also have the chance to grow your skills, advance your career, and make an impact on millions of lives." Below, you can see an example SMR from NuScale.
49 Comments on Microsoft Plans to Build Nuclear-Powered Data Centers
And since we're talking powering a data center the waste isn't even going to be big.
Incidents at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
;)
I imagine they will subsidize this by either asking local govt for funds in exchange for power they can push back to the grid or pay out of pocket and then recoup by pushing back to the local grid.
Also yeah there's the issue of spent nuclear material but it's fairly straightforward to stack a bunch of metal rods in concrete containers, seal them off and store them until we become efficient at performing fissile material reclamation. We're not dealing with green, glowing goop a la Simpsons, they're little silver metal pellets/rods. It's possible to re-use the remaining viable nuclear material contained within the rods and Japan has already had success with this process.
Even so, the waste ammount is not that big and we've been dealing with it adequately for a long time. Not really, part of the idea of small reactors is having the reactor vessel loaded up will all the fuel it will use. When the reactor reaches end of life it's all packed and ready to go "somewhere". By official numbers yes but just as soviet dumbfuckery created the biggest nuclear disaster in history it also hid the thousands of direct and indirect casualties of the accident and clean up. It's very hard to come up with a good number but when accounting for the reduced lifespan of people in nearby areas, higher rates of cancer diseaces and so on it's obviously worse than any hydro damn failure (Zhumadian excluded) Throw it inside a breeder reactor to make new fuel ;) It's not. Some of it is left above ground in concrete caskets and it's fine. Not true, being the first to bury spent fuel deep underground is different than few nations having it figured out. The netherlands even offers visits to their storage sites
If this is the push needed to make SMRs and vSMRs viable and cheap, then I'm all for it. A more robust power grid with multiple SMRs would go a long ways to providing the increased energy requirements while being much safer than legacy nuclear powerplants. And since the fuel is easier to recycle and reuse for other SMRs compared to legacy nuclear, would also help bring costs down. And should the day come when everyone can buy their own 1Mw micro-SMR for their homes, we can start doing away with electrical bills and unsightly solar panel installations.
I wonder how they cool these things in case of an emergency shutdown?
And where is the generator located? And the powerlines?
As mentioned, Finland is in the construction process with many nations moving forward with specified long term storage sites that will be deep underground. If there was less bureaucracy involved and fewer people trying to hamstring deployment of the tech, it would be further along.
There are however also a lot of things we seem to be able to do right, and we trust in its safety. Somehow though with nuclear waste / radiation we fear it more than the safety of say, a flight on an airplane, which is an incredible amount of times more dangerous... or driving a car, yet another many times more dangerous.
"But if it goes wrong it goes really really wrong"... sure, so reduced scale also reduces the magnitude of how really wrong it can get. On the other hand, SMR's are 'scalable' :D I still think if we use more nuclear, we'll learn better how to handle it. Lots of people and countries still live with this silly idea they have a choice in the energy transition wrt nuclear. I don't think we do... especially in more population dense areas.
As long as nobody wants to acknowledge we need to switch economies to 'less' instead of 'more', we'll need nuclear for damn sure.
Air pollution and climate change from burning fossil fuels are visibly, demonstrably, factually, historically-documented by organisations (including governments) as vastly more dangerous to human life than the nuclear waste/nuclear disaster per Megawatt-hour of energy produced; Acid rain damaging food sources, buildings, wildlife, respiratory issues, lung cancer, reduced life expectancy, increased onset of strokes, or other heart conditions, eye and skin allergies all provably linked to fossil fuel pollution - and that's just the side effect in the atmosphere from burning the fuels, never mind the health and environmental damage caused by extracting and refining them. There's a whole bunch of secondary crap that might be caused by fossil-fuel pollution, but not widely-accepted, or with not enough clinical trials or peer-reviews to make governments pass regulations against them yet.
How much was that "vastly" I bolded up there? Estimates vary depending on your source, but somewhere between 2 and 8 orders of magnitude. Not 2-8x more, 2-8 additional zeros on the number of times more. Whilst fossil-fuelled power won't have the horror story of Chernobyl to scare people, the total death toll from historic explosions in traditional coal and gas power plants is much higher, even when weighted by production share of global energy output. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_accidentsl. A good chunk of the deaths from fossil-fuel accidents are from mining/drilling and whilst uranium also needs to be mined, you don't need to do as much mining. 1Kg of uranium 235 produces 2-3 million times more electricity than 1KG of coal, for example.
Is nuclear energy completely safe and problem free? Nope.
Is coal/oil/gas categorically more dangerous to human life, both immediately, and also with less-obvious secondary dangers? Absolutely.
We do need clean energy, and nuclear isn't completely clean, but it'll have to do until renewables solve their national-scale storage shortcomings.
Just imagine how clean the skies and air would be if there was zero energy production using fossil fuels. The next target has to be IC engines.
it is left alone for half a century for the fuel to cool down enough for it to be safely handle
for preferably reprocessing and reuse or longterm storage.
(source)
Meanwhile, only a quarter-million tons of nuclear waste has ever been stored (400K tons total, but 1/3rd of that has been reprocessed):
(source)
edit: a quarter-million tons of waste, ever. In the total history of all nuclear power, going back to 1954, the cumulative waste is about the same as 5 weeks of typical waste out of a single coal powerplant. Yes, it requires special storage, but so does coal waste, of which about 42% of it is genuinely waste that doesn't get re-used and has to be dealt with and regulated by government environmental agencies.