NextEra, Brookfield to Build $100 Billion Kentucky Data Campus (bloomberg.com) 27
NextEra and Brookfield plan to invest more than $100 billion to transform a former uranium-enrichment site in Kentucky into a data center campus with a generating plant. "The privately funded effort will include construction of 2 gigawatts of natural gas-fired power at or near the site in Paducah in western Kentucky, and as much as 2.6 gigawatts of battery storage capacity," reports Bloomberg. " For context, a single gigawatt of capacity is roughly the output of a traditional nuclear power plant and can power about 750,000 homes at any given moment." From the report: Brookfield will develop and operate the 1.8 GW data center campus, which will occupy portions of the sprawling 3,556-acre Energy Department site once used to produce weapons-grade uranium and fuel for nuclear reactors. Operations using the now obsolete enrichment technology known as gaseous diffusion stopped in 2013 and the site is now subject to cleanup efforts. Construction is expected to be completed in 2031, the Energy Department said. "The U.S. government is leveraging its assets -- like our federal lands -- to add power generation, create jobs, and ensure the United States wins the AI race," Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. The project is expected to create 8,000 construction jobs and 600 permanent positions, the department said.
What is there is no race (Score:2)
Always the talk of a race. And the whole world are the enemies. Seems like the US is treating everything like a zero sum game where winning at all costs is necessary. Is this a cold war relic? Will this actually benefit American citizens?
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I'm also curious. Who are they racing with?
Re:What is there is no race (Score:4, Insightful)
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Use the waste heat from the data center to heat homes in the winter.
Re: What is there is no race (Score:2, Insightful)
Even dual-purposing the energy like that will still be less efficient than a heat pump
Re: What is there is no race (Score:2)
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Each other.
This isn't nationalism. This is billionaire oligarchy, where the billionaires are racing with each other and we're all roadkill.
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Maintaining parity as a deterrence to attack. (Score:2)
Always the talk of a race. And the whole world are the enemies.
Just regimes like Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. And one of them is a credible AI researcher, one who would likely weaponize AI. Seems like the US is treating everything like a zero sum game where winning at all costs is necessary.
Nope. Its maintaining parity as a deterrence to attack.
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Of those nations you list, only China is anywhere credible as a threat in the AI race. But even if China won, they are perfectly happy to sell us the models along with the hardware to run them on. China seems quite content to dominate economically, but has zero interest in any kind of military conquest and direct rule of those they consider non-Chinese, at least of the same kind the US has regularly demonstrated in the past.
Putin may talk big, but Russia is in no position to develop any kind of home-grown
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Of those nations you list, ...
You asked who might be enemies of the USA.
.... only China is anywhere credible as a threat in the AI race.
Did "one of them is a credible AI researcher" confuse you?
But even if China won, they are perfectly happy to sell us the models along with the hardware to run them on.
You realize models can have military applications?
China seems quite content to dominate economically, but has zero interest in any kind of military conquest ....
and direct rule of those they consider non-Chinese,
Actually they work to destroy non-Chinese religions and cultures within their territory. Forcing Han culture and language.
at least of the same kind the US has regularly demonstrated in the past.
And no longer does, having become more civilized. Unlike the CCP.
Something to look forward to ... (Score:3)
At last ... Kentucky Fried Data!
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Federal lands (Score:2)
All the hunters and fisherman who voted for this are going to blame Hillary/Obama/Binden.
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All the hunters and fisherman who voted for this are going to blame Hillary/Obama/Binden.
And B.Clinton, Carter, Johnson, J.F.Kennedy, Truman, Roosevelt...
2.6 gigawatts of battery storage capacity (Score:3)
You don't measure battery storage capacity in watts.
You measure it in watt hours.
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Instantaneous power is the most important metric when you are designing an system for instantaneous power support. The use case is when there is a failure in the local power plant and you need to keep everything in the data center up for 10 minutes to get the hot standby running and synchronized. It doesn't matter how long you can run only half the data center.
So they're calling them campuses now? (Score:5, Insightful)
The data center build out really is letting people know, especially people in rural communities, just how much of their own autonomy they have given up over the last... When was Ronald Reagan elected?
watts are not storage (Score:2)
>"and as much as 2.6 gigawatts of battery storage capacity"
Watts are not a singular unit for the storage of energy. There must be a time component. Why do so many articles seem to make this same ridiculous mistake. Are we talking about 2.6 gigawatt hours?
Quick Facts (Score:2)
"a former uranium-enrichment site" (Score:2)