{"id":369068,"date":"2025-03-08T09:56:04","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T08:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=369068"},"modified":"2025-03-08T09:56:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T08:56:06","slug":"ai-revolution-so-big-texas-grid-needs-the-equivalent-of-30-nuclear-reactors-by-2030-to-meet-power-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=369068","title":{"rendered":"AI revolution: So big, Texas grid needs the equivalent of 30 Nuclear Reactors By 2030 to meet Power Demand"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From JoNova<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jo Nova<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The insatiable hunger for electricity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The world is about to flip from an energy diet to an electrical boom. Look at Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in Australia our top Blob Scientists<\/a> tell us it will take 15 years to build one nuclear plant. But in Texas, which has two nuclear plants already, the AI revolution is beating down the door, and it\u2019s saying \u201cFeed me 30 plants for breakfast \u201d \u2014 or at least by 2030. It\u2019s like a different planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are already 340 datacentres in Texas which use 8GW of power<\/a>, but new projects are so large, they are starting to ask for a whole gigawatt up front. And the sum total of requests for new electrical supply adds up to 99 gigawatts \u2014 most of which have materialized in the last year. The new level of demand is so big, the grid managers are starting to worry that single new industrial loads are large enough to threaten the grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re talking of a seismic shift:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The ERCOT grid peak load last summer was 86 gigawatts<\/a>. The new peak demand by 2030 is expected to be 75% bigger. It may not all be nuclear, ERCOT did ask for \u201cthe equivalent\u201d of 30 new nuclear plants. But it will be big and fast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas has 31 million people. Australia has 26 million (plus a million foreign uni students). We\u2019re performing a national pantomime over whether it\u2019s realistic to build a few nuclear plants and a couple of SMR\u2019s, as if we\u2019re plotting to build the first colony on Venus. Meanwhile Texas is leading the revolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas Needs Equivalent of 30 Reactors to Meet Data Center Power Demand<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Financial Post<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve never existed in a place where large industrial loads can really impact the reliability of the grid, and now we are stepping into that world.\u201d<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

[Bloomberg]\u2014 Demand on the Texas power grid is expected to expand so immensely that it would take the equivalent of adding 30 nuclear plants\u2019 worth of electricity by 2030 to meet the needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the grid. The forecast is based on the addition of new data centers needed to power artificial intelligence. And it\u2019s raising concerns about whether infrastructure in the state will be able to expand fast enough \u2014 and at what cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ZeroHedge<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Individual projects are already starting to request 1 gigawatt of power and they pose new risks to maintaining a stable grid, <\/strong>said Agee Springer, Ercot\u2019s senior manager of grid interconnections. A gigawatt is typically enough to power 250,000 homes in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ercot said it\u2019s gotten requests equal to 99 gigawatts <\/strong>for new connections to the grid from big power users, including data centers, bitcoin miners and hydrogen producers, according to an internal grid presentation Thursday. That\u2019s up from 40.8 gigawatts last March.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a big question as to whether infrastructure can be built fast enough because of supply chain issues, resulting in long wait times for things like big turbines to produce electricity and other key equipment such as transformers<\/strong>. Another critical issues is who is going to pay for all of this build out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One company is already planning to build 30 micronuclear plants<\/a>. Another wants to develop molten salt reactors<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of the AI teams are begging for wind or solar power. If Australia were to build new coal plants, or new nuclear plants with spare capacity, Big AI would be here in a flash. The La Trobe Valley could become a world leading AI centre if the government was willing to keep using the\u00a0300 years of cheap brown coal there<\/a>. At\u00a03 cents a kilowatt hour<\/a>\u00a0wholesale, it\u2019s still the cheapest electricity on the planet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we want to be the coal and iron mine at the edge of the world, or would we like to ride the revolution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world is about to flip from an energy diet to an electrical boom. Look at Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":369073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691823433,691825445,691826368,691818589,691818577,691823573],"class_list":{"0":"post-369068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-ai-artificial-intelligence-2","9":"tag-electrical-supply","10":"tag-ercot-electric-reliability-council-of-texas","11":"tag-nuclear-plants","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-the-grid","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/01693764431291.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1y0I","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":372050,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=372050","url_meta":{"origin":369068,"position":0},"title":"Nuclear Subsidies in Texas? 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With the tricked grid continuing to attract inferior energies, Texas politicians have tried to wrong a wrong into a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Green New Scam\"","block_context":{"text":"Green New Scam","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=green-new-scam"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/0na_nuclear_plant_lede_bw_526.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/0na_nuclear_plant_lede_bw_526.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/0na_nuclear_plant_lede_bw_526.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/0na_nuclear_plant_lede_bw_526.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/0na_nuclear_plant_lede_bw_526.jpg?fit=1200%2C797&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":271233,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=271233","url_meta":{"origin":369068,"position":1},"title":"More Media Lies About the Texas Electricity Grid","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"03\/08\/2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Inflated prices and power failures could have occurred without green energy.","rel":"","context":"In \"Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)\"","block_context":{"text":"Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT)","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=electric-reliability-council-of-texas-ercot"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Frozen-Power-Grid.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Frozen-Power-Grid.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Frozen-Power-Grid.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Frozen-Power-Grid.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/0Frozen-Power-Grid.jpeg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":369183,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=369183","url_meta":{"origin":369068,"position":2},"title":"The AI Age Begins: Texas ERCOT Slammed with 99GW of New Energy Demand","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"09\/03\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"It\u2019s not just Texas. 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