Talen Energy subsidiary Cumulus Data completed the first building of its Susquehanna, Pennsylvania data center. The unusual facility is fueled directly on-site by Talen’s 2.5GW nuclear power station and will house bitcoin mining and cloud computing services, firmly integrating nuclear power in two popular businesses.
Data centers like these are power-hungry. “The cloud depends on processing factories; vast data centers that use enormous amounts of power and water,” the BBC said in promoting its recent Panorama program “Is the Cloud Damaging the Planet?” Online activity raises its carbon footprint.”
Data centres and transmission account for between 1% and 1.5% of worldwide power usage, according to the International Energy Agency. As more countries invest in data, these numbers will only climb. As the world approaches its 2030 and 2050 climate objectives, the environmental cost of powering the internet through cloud data centres is a hot subject.
Cumulus Data and other organizations are investigating how renewables like nuclear power might reduce carbon emissions. Nuclear may be too disruptive for such a delicate sector.
Energy “trilemma” and nuclear cloud solution
Cumulus Data CEO Alejandro Hernandez has called the energy “trilemma” the fast rising need for zero-carbon, low-cost, and dependable data centers. Cumulus Data officials believe attaching their data center to Talen’s nuclear reactor will fulfill these standards.
In a news statement, Cumulus Data chief revenue officer Scott Hanna stated, “There are currently few options that fulfil all three requirements at massive scale, while offering data centre customers an industry-leading [total cost of ownership]. “As members of the iMasons Climate Accord, Talen and Cumulus will support our customers in achieving carbon neutrality by uniting to adopt a common standard enabled by solutions like the Cumulus carbon-free data centre platform.”
International governments hope nuclear energy will solve their energy problems. According to chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the British government is trying to rebrand nuclear power as “sustainable” to make funding nuclear reactors simpler. This is essential since the UK government wants to generate 25% of its electricity from nuclear by 2050, up from 10.9% currently.
The EU classified nuclear power similarly to promote investment. However, the UK was hesitant to include nuclear in its 2021 green investment framework.
Image issue
Despite its carbon-free creation, nuclear energy is still debated as a green power source and whether it should be used to power cloud computing centers. EDF’s new reactor at Hinkley Point, like many nuclear plants, is over budget and late.
Greenpeace France also noted the global situation of nuclear waste and the government’s periodic struggles to securely handle it. The future of large-scale nuclear power is questionable after Greenpeace and WWF/Client Earth sued the European Commission.
Nuclear has a PR issue. “It’s green, scalable, and reliable. The issue? Marketing,” former Kohler Power Systems director Sean Farney told Data Centre Frontier. Nuclear energy is one of the cleanest and safest. If the data center business can change this mindset, sustainability might improve greatly.”
Maybe it’s sector maturity. In March, Bahnof CEO Jon Karlung told SVT Nyheter that he would like to power a facility with a nuclear reactor, along with Linde and Boliden, but it could take a while. “Ten years from now it is quite possible,” he says.
This apparent immaturity might deepen nuclear-cloud computing links. Despite their technological prowess and efficacy, neither technique is yet the industry standard. At Culumus Data’s facility, nuclear power and cloud technology might be demonstrated together, legitimizing both technologies in slow-changing sectors.
Traditional renewables
Beyond nuclear, typical renewable power methods can fuel cloud computing. Iron Mountain Data Centers general manager Michael Goh told Data Centre Frontier, “We are not likely to pursue contracts with new nuclear generation projects like we would with wind or solar.
“Many nuclear projects are being decommissioned and there are legitimate concerns over the future safety and environmental impact of spent fuel,” Goh said. “Nuclear technology may evolve to address current concerns. Wind, solar, and geothermal are the cheapest carbon-free energy sources till then.”
Several data centers are tackling the trilemma this way. Teledata, a UK cloud hosting and data center provider, said in January that it will deploy a scalable 1.2MW hydrogen-ready fuel cell to power its Wythenshawe facility in the north-west of England. Last year, NTR signed a power purchase deal with Microsoft.
Orange installed solar panels at two data centers in Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso in March, the same month Google signed a 225MW solar power contract with Sol Systems for its North and South Carolina campuses.
Nuclear licensees have lately started adopting the cloud for operational activities, possibly fittingly due to cybersecurity and information assurance concerns.
While nuclear has begun to embrace the cloud, the cloud may not completely invest in nuclear for some time. Several data center operators have expressed interest in nuclear energy as a power source, but Cumulus Data’s Susquehanna facility may have to prove itself before the industry invests in the field.