[myaccountonhn]

> In an October letter to the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recommended that the US add 100 gigawatts in energy capacity every year.

> Krishna also referenced the depreciation of the AI chips inside data centers as another factor: "You've got to use it all in five years because at that point, you've got to throw it away and refill it," he said.

And people think the climate concerns of AI are overblown. Currently US has ~1300 GW of energy capacity. That's a huge increase each year.

[throwaway31131]

100GW per year is not going to happen.

The largest plant in the world is the Three Gorges Dam in China at 22GW and it’s off the scales huge. We’re not building the equivalent of four of those every year.

Unless the plan is to power it off Sam Altman’s hot air. That could work. :)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations

[snake_doc]

China added ~90GW of utility solar per year in last 2 years. There's ~400-500GW solar+wind under construction there.

It is possible, just may be not in the U.S.

Note: given renewables can't provide base load, capacity factor is 10-30% (lower for solar, higher for wind), so actual energy generation will vary...

[ProllyInfamous]

Background: I live within the US Federal Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), a regional electric grid operator. The majority of energy is generated by nuclear + renewables, with coal and natural gas as peakers. Grid stability is maintained by among the largest batteries in the world, Racoon Mountain Pumped Storage Facility.

Three Gorges Dam is capable of generating more power than all of TVA's nuclear + hydro, combined. In the past decade, TVA's single pumped-storage battery has gone from largest GWh/capcity in the world to not even top ten — largest facilities are now in China.

µFission reactors have recently been approved for TVA commissioning, with locations unconfirmed (but about one-sixth the output of typical TVA nuclear site). Sub-station battery storage sites are beginning to go online, capable of running subdivisions for hours after circuit disconnects.

Tech-funded entities like Helios Energy are promising profitable ¡FusioN! within a few years ("for fifty years").

----

All of the above just to say: +100GW over the next decade isn't that crazy a prediction (+20% current supply, similar in size to two additional Texas-es).

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electr...

[bpicolo]

Amazing that 4 of the top 5 are renewables in China.

[baq]

New datacenters are being planned next to natgas hubs for a reason. They’re being designed with on site gas turbines as primary electricity sources.

[octoberfranklin]

Gigawatts? Pshaw. We have SamaWatts.

[ryandrake]

LOL, maybe Sam Altman can fund those power plants. Let me guess: He'd rather the public pay for it, and for him to benefit/profit from the increased capacity.

[intrasight]

Big tech is going to have to fund the plants and probably transmission. Because the energy utilities have a decades long planning horizon for investments.

Good discussion about this in recent Odd Lots podcast.

[coliveira]

Scam Altman wants the US to build a lot of energy plants so that the country will pay the costs and OpenAI will have the profits of using this cheap energy.

[jamesbelchamber]

If we moron our way to large-scale nuclear and renewable energy rollout however..

[mywittyname]

I highly doubt this will happen. It will be natural gas all the way, maybe some coal as energy prices will finally make it profitable again.

[mrguyorama]

This admin has already killed as much solar and wind and battery as it can.

The only large scale rollout will be payment platforms that will allow you to split your energy costs into "Five easy payments"

[venturecruelty]

Guess who's going to pay nothing for power? Hint: it's not you, and it's not me.

[tehjoker]

There's a reason Trump is talking about invading Venezuela (hint: it's because they have the largest oil deposits).