I started out my coverage in this edition a bit salty about the whole “Microsoft is getting its own nuclear power plant,” topic, but the more I read and thought, the more I realized it’s highly nuanced.
Highly nuanced is what we hope for our coverage in Enspired—meaty topics discussing inspiring energy innovations. We’d love to hear, well, what YOU want to hear. Tell us which topics you’d like to see in Enspired by taking our survey.
And if AI in energy is your jam, AAPG Academy is hosting a free webinar next Tuesday, October 8, on the state of AI in upstream energy. I’ll be moderating a panel discussion led by esteemed experts from NVIDIA and ROGII, to discuss their experience with, and thoughts on, using AI in our field. Register here.
For now, let’s dig into Microsoft’s revamp of Three Mile Island.
Sarah Compton
Editor, Enspired
The Electron Slide
Dobresum/ Shutterstock.com
Chacha real smooth…take it back now, y’all. The electrons, that is.
Catching up: Three Mile Island is not generally the first thing that comes to mind when people think of “safe nuclear energy,” but Unit 1 on the site (i.e. the reactor that didn’t nearly melt down in 1979) had still been safely producing electrons until 2019, when it was shut down for economic reasons.
Costly, but clean: The petroleum industry’s hard work has made it tough on nuclear energy, because electricity can be produced more cheaply by natural gas than by enriched uranium. Enriched uranium, however, is significantly cleaner (except in the very rare instances when things go wrong…).
So, is it worth rolling the dice? Recently, Big Tech has started to answer “Yes.” Here’s why:
The need for electricity is only growing. The AI revolution in particular is spawning data centers faster than power plants can keep up with.
The risk of relying on renewable sources such as solar and wind is only now becoming more widely understood.
Tax credits from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act provide some incentive.
Driving the news: So, Microsoft has entered a 20-year, $1.68-billion agreement with Constellation Energy to revamp Unit 1 at Three Mile Island. It plans to purchase all of the electricity that the plant will generate to power its data centers.
If successful, this will be the first deal and nuclear restart of its kind.
The redone reactor is scheduled to come online in 2028, renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center. It would add 835 megawatts of energy over 20 years.
In other words: Microsoft is building its own nuclear power plant so it can provide the consistent flow of electrons that its data centers need without destroying its carbon credit budget.
And yesterday, the news broke that the DOE is has finalized a $1.5-billion loan to revamp a nuclear plant in Michigan.
My take: My first reaction (no pun intended 😉) was that it’s a terrible idea to let these megacorporations essentially own their own power plants. I immediately came up with all sorts of issues (avoiding free market competition not the least among them), but I realized it’s more nuanced.
Individual citizens and small businesses can create and access our own power also in the form of solar panels and maybe a small windmill on the properties we own.
Scaling that up only goes so far, however, and the problem of powering the data centers that are increasingly informing our world is not so easily solved with renewables or even fossil fuels.
There’s a finite amount of electricity that gets generated, and each electron has a price tag. The costs to everyday consumers could be buffered by removing a huge electron suck from the grid and giving it its own source.
I still have reservations, but this is certainly a development worth following. Learn more here.
A message from AAPG Academy and Enspired
Automated geosteering and other innovative uses of AI are slowly making their way into upstream energy.
How soon will they become mainstream within the industry?
Which uses could be right for your company?
And what would widespread industry use mean for the geoscience community?
Join experts from NVIDIA and ROGII in a panel discussion moderated by Enspired editor, Sarah Compton that will answer these questions and more on 8 October.
Drilling operations, such as pipe wrangling, have been becoming steadily more automated, and NOV is now working to make operations even more safe and efficient by replacing rig hands with its fully automated ATOM RTX robotics system.
The tech combines hardware improvements in robotics, such as more precise motions, with software automation advancements to improve reliability, consistency, and safety.
Its interchangeable ends make it essentially a fully automated rig floor. It can perform tasks such as doping, guiding when stabbing, tailing, stand building, and mud containment.
The tech would potentially remove humans from the redzone, meaning improved safety in nearly all situations: Most injuries and lost time on rigs occur on the rig floor, according to a 2023 report by the International Drilling Contractors Association.
The system’s footprint has been reduced as much as possible to improve modularity and minimize the rig changes needed for implementation.
My first take is that it looks like an oversized version of one of Tony Stark’s robots.
The changes humans need to make to implement this tech have a familiar ring to them:
Worker skillsets will need an upgrade. Making connections and wrangling pipe requires a different skillset than babysitting a machine that wrangles pipes and makes connections.
Employer training will need to shift as well. Safety, operations, and maintenance are just a few realms that will need an overhaul.
Change is inevitable, and the need for efficiencies is often a relentless driver. We can either be aware of these changes and adjust for them or get left behind when they get implemented. Read more here.
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