In a remarkable topical twofer, not only is Microsoft turning to nuclear power to run its data centres, it's commissioned the restarting of the infamous Three Mile Island station – the site of the worst commercial nuclear accident in US history.
These power-hungry servers and databases were already becoming a drain on the electrical grid, but the explosion of AI has compounded the problem, with estimates data centres in the United States will suck as much as 35 GW of electricity by 2030, or almost twice the amount in 2022.
That might not seem like much, but that would equate to about 9% of the projected average power draw of the entire US in 2030. Since a lot of energy and environmental planning is based on estimated power consumption, a lot of sums will need to be redone. Worse, the current policy in many parts of the developed world relies heavily on conversion to renewable sources like wind and solar, which are intermittent, while these data centres must run 24/7 without interruption. READ MORE...
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