Why Advanced Offshore Nuclear could be the Best Solution for the Energy Crisis Driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Collocation of the Offshore Energy Generation Systems (OEGS) in Floating Data Center Units could prove to be an effective solution for the Energy Crisis Driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI). AI digital revolution accelerated the demand for data centers that was already challenged by the growing need for cloud services, blockchain, and other information technology services needed by governments and corporations. But all these Data centers have in common that they require:
Reliable, affordable clean power supply.
Effective and efficient cooling systems. Water is a better cooling medium than air.
Data Security including physical barriers.
The real modularization of the units without the transportation limits for rails and roads.
Rapid deployment of a large number of units without the limitations of onshore
Fewer social impacts (Noise)
This article describes why We concluded that embracing early Advanced Offshore Nuclear technology (New Nuclear), like the one proposed by the OEGS Offshore Energy Generation System from OEGS Technology could be an effective tool to resolve the Energy Crisis driven by Artificial Intelligence and a key competitive advantage for the companies that embrace it.
This article presents a quick analysis from the business perspective as well as from the technical perspective.
The Business Perspective:
International Energy Agency (IEA) reported in their Electricity 2024 Analysis and forecast to 2026 that the “Global electricity demand from data centers could double towards 2026”. International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that data centers, cryptocurrencies, and artificial intelligence (AI) consumed about 460 TWh of electricity worldwide in 2022, almost 2% of total global electricity demand.
Figure 1 Global Electricity Demand from Data Centers, AI and Cryptocurrencies 2109-2026 IEA
The rapid development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have created unprecedented demands on our energy infrastructure, sparking concerns about whether we might soon face significant power shortages. Erik Brynjolfsson mentioned in the Second Machine Age book, “Recently there's been an acceleration around the second Machine age and especially just the past five or ten years with big data and other breakthroughs in artificial intelligence that have rapidly sped up the ability of machines to do things that previously only humans could do. These are just the warm-up acts, the beginning of an even bigger set of changes in the next decade or two.” But this could be limited if there is not the amount of clean energy available as Elon Musk pointed out “Artificial Intelligence (AI) will run out of electricity and transformers in 2025”. https://newatlas.com/technology/elon-musk-ai/
Figure 2 Estimated electricity demand 2022 and 2026
Figure 2 illustrates the Estimated electricity for traditional data centers, dedicated AI data centers, and cryptocurrencies, 2022 and 2026, base case Considering the upcoming growth in power demand driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI). This energy demand growth is in addition to the other market forces already pushing the demand higher than expected e.g., Electric Vehicles (EV), electrification, blockchain, crypto, and advanced manufacturing accelerated by nearshoring. A dispatchable affordable reliable energy source like Advanced Offshore Nuclear could define winners and losers in the Digital Revolution.
Newmark reported in the 2023 US Data Center Market Overview that the data center industry's exponential growth in recent years was fueled primarily by the expanding needs of major corporations (hyper scalers). Major colocation operations operators with smaller specialized providers. The Q323 global spending on cloud infrastructure services was greater than 68 billion USD up 18% year over year.
Figure 3 Estimated Percent of Enterprises Implementing AI.
Artificial Intelligence is considered an inevitable and disruptive technology compared to the internet or the mobile phone and it has the potential to touch every sector of global industry. The Figure 3 Estimated Percent of Enterprises Implementing AI. @newmark report indicates that the data center demand in the US is expected to reach 35 GWe by 2030, up from 17 GWe in 2022. Table 1 from the same report shows the CAPEX investment growth by the Hyperscaler companies that requires a larger amount of clean reliable and affordable power and cooling systems.
Table 1 Hyperscalers 5-Year Cloud CAPEX in (USD) Billions)
On June 2024 DGTL infra reported that the 10 largest providers and operators of data centers, including Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Meta Platforms, Equinix, Digital Realty, NTT Global Data Centers, CyrusOne, GDS Holdings, and KDDI’s Telehouse, operate over 1,250 facilities around the world. https://dgtlinfra.com/top-data-center-companies/
The Technical Perspective:
Data centers are a critical part of the infrastructure that supports digitalization along with the electricity infrastructure that powers them. The ever-growing quantity of digital data requires an expansion and evolution of data centers to process and store it. According to International Energy Agency (IEA) the Electricity demand in data centers is mainly. from two processes, with computing accounting for 40% of the electricity demand of a data center. Cooling requirements to achieve stable processing efficiency similarly make up about another 40%. The remaining 20% comes from other associated IT equipment.
Reliability and affordable clean power supply are provided by Advanced Nuclear Technology which offers the highest reliability among all sources of clean energy. The carbon footprint during operations is zero and OEGS Technology has inherent safety design concepts ranging from less than 50 MWe up to 1 GWe that could accommodate the data centers in the same floating facility in the ocean
The second inherent advantage of floating in the ocean is the possibility of better cooling systems than on land given the access to abundant water. The offshore oil and gas industry has developed very effective and efficient systems for cooling that could be used on the data center systems. Water is a better cooling medium than air as one liter of water can bring about 3000 times more energy out of a system when compared with one liter of air. This comes from the physical properties of air which has a much lower heat conductivity than water. Air cooling mediums require higher velocities to increase their effectiveness, the flow has to be turbulent, and the surface to interact with air needs to be large. All this increases the air resistance, increases the blow pressure, and thus power needed and is likely to generate Low-frequency noise from air fans, also known as a "hum" or "drone", which is a common complaint that can be a problem for sensitive people in their homes. Low-frequency noise is defined as a frequency range of about 10–200 Hz, which can be outside the range of human hearing. Exposure to low-frequency noise can cause fatigue, exhaustion, or even partial deafness. It can also alter the inner ear, making people more sensitive to low-frequency sounds. In general, low-frequency waves travel further distances, and there are multiple reports of communities complaining about the noise coming from the data centers.
As a result, the cooling power of water cooling is superior to air cooling. One of the main benefits of liquid cooling is that it can achieve lower temperatures and higher overclocking potential than air cooling, as the liquid is more efficient than air at transferring heat. This can result in better performance, stability, and longevity of your components, as well as lower noise levels, as the fans can run slower and quieter.
Offshore installation also offers the possibility of additional physical barriers to ensure data security for the owners of the data, for cases that require extra security barriers. Offshore also offers the rapid fabrication and possibility of deployment of a large number of units without the limitations proper of the onshore construction.
Offshore installation of the Digital infrastructure offers the possibility of real modularization of the digital hardware infrastructure without the onshore size transportation limits for rails and roads. Onshore there is a need to break all the components for transportation and the reassembly again at the data center location. Offshore structures offer much more flexibility and lower transportation limits as We have floating vessels in the water today up to 400 meters long.
Offshore also offers the scalability needed for a global industry response with more than 70% of the surface of the planet Earth covered with water and half of the population living within 200km (124 miles) of the coastlines.
Conclusions:
In OEGS Technology we recommend advanced offshore nuclear floating platforms that offer a Carbon Free Future Clean, affordable, reliable, inherently safe, accessible, and scalable.
Offshore also offers the scalability needed for a global industry response with more than 70% of the surface of the planet Earth covered with water and half of the population living within 200km (124 miles) of the coastlines.
Reliable, affordable clean power supply. Effective and efficient cooling systems. Water is a better cooling medium than air. Data Security including physical barriers.The real modularization of the units without the transportation limits for rails and roads. Rapid deployment of a large number of units without the limitations of onshore. Eliminate the electric transmission costs of cable and substation allocating the data centers with the offshore nuclear power generation. and Fewer social impacts (Noise)
