I concede that my grasp of the scale involved was unrealistic. However, I don’t see a viable solution. The issue, I have realized, isn’t how to generate the power, it’s the scale of power needed to run these data center monstrosities.
So if solar and wind (with batteries, of course) would be very challenging, it is at least vaguely possible. Texas is a great state for wind, solar, and geothermal power. It already generates about 30% of it’s power from renewables. Texas has a lot of sunny days and a lot of open spaces for wind farms particularly in the western parts of the state. I can think of worse ideas than covering all those oil fields with solar panels or wind farms. You wouldn’t even need to stop producing oil. You can do both.
Nuclear really isn’t viable. Starting the approval process now, it would easily be 20 years before a new plant would start producing power. No one is waiting two decades to open their data center.
The only other option to power these data centers, the one they are going with, is fossil fuels. That means multiplying the amount of toxic and greenhouse gasses being pumped into our air which is the absolute worst option for everyone on the planet.
I concede that my grasp of the scale involved was unrealistic. However, I don’t see a viable solution. The issue, I have realized, isn’t how to generate the power, it’s the scale of power needed to run these data center monstrosities.
As you say, 7.65 gigawatts is a lot of power. According to ERCOT, Texas just set a new record for power demand in July of 91gw. So this plant, built to supply this one data center complex, will produce power equal to 8.5% as much power as the entire state of Texas required at peak demand this year (so far, anyway). 8.5% of peak demand for the entire state of Texas which, by the way, is the largest energy consuming state. Texas uses about 15% of the total power generated in the entire USA according to EAI.gov.
So if solar and wind (with batteries, of course) would be very challenging, it is at least vaguely possible. Texas is a great state for wind, solar, and geothermal power. It already generates about 30% of it’s power from renewables. Texas has a lot of sunny days and a lot of open spaces for wind farms particularly in the western parts of the state. I can think of worse ideas than covering all those oil fields with solar panels or wind farms. You wouldn’t even need to stop producing oil. You can do both.
Nuclear really isn’t viable. Starting the approval process now, it would easily be 20 years before a new plant would start producing power. No one is waiting two decades to open their data center.
The only other option to power these data centers, the one they are going with, is fossil fuels. That means multiplying the amount of toxic and greenhouse gasses being pumped into our air which is the absolute worst option for everyone on the planet.