Will Nuclear Power be a zero carbon option for data centers?

Associated Press has an article that went out this morning appealing to environmentalist to embrace nuclear power.  Here is the ABC version.

Experts Say Nuclear Power Needed to Slow Warming

PITTSBURGH November 3, 2013 (AP)
By KEVIN BEGOS Associated Press
 
 
 

 

Some of the world's top climate scientists say wind and solar energy won't be enough to head off extreme global warming, and they're asking environmentalists to support the development of safer nuclear power as one way to cut fossil fuel pollution.

The Full letter from the scientist is here.

Kerry Emanuel originally shared:
 
To those influencing environmental policy but opposed to nuclear power: 

As climate and energy scientists concerned with global climate change, we are writing to urge you to advocate the development and deployment of safer nuclear energy systems. We appreciate your organization’s concern about global warming, and your advocacy of renewable energy. But continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change. 

We call on your organization to support the development and deployment of safer nuclear power systems as a practical means of addressing the climate change problem. Global demand for energy is growing rapidly and must continue to grow to provide the needs of developing economies. At the same time, the need to sharply reduce greenhouse gas emissions is becoming ever clearer. We can only increase energy supply while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions if new power plants turn away from using the atmosphere as a waste dump. 

Renewables like wind and solar and biomass will certainly play roles in a future energy economy, but those energy sources cannot scale up fast enough to deliver cheap and reliable power at the scale the global economy requires. While it may be theoretically possible to stabilize the climate without nuclear power, in the real world there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power

The four scientist may think their strategy of appealing to the environmentalist will be reasonable and logical.  The problem is most environmental groups survive based on donations, grants, and the efforts of their volunteers.  These people are its users and they predominantly believe nuclear power is evil.

What will be the defining moment is what countries follow the advice of the scientist and are more successfully able to lower its carbon footprint.

Below are a few of the countries with nuclear power.  The most notable anti nuclear is Japan and Germany.

France is pro nuclear with 75% nuclear power.

Nuclear Power in France

(Updated September 2013)

  • France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.
  • France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this.
  • France has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and fuel products and services are a major export.
  • It is building its first Generation III reactor.
  • About 17% of France's electricity is from recycled nuclear fuel.

France Nuclear Power Map

Germany is anti nuclear and pro coal with renewables

Nuclear Power in Germany

(updated October 2013)

  • Germany until March 2011 obtained one quarter of its electricity from nuclear energy, using 17 reactors. The figure is now about 18%.
  • A coalition government formed after the 1998 federal elections had the phasing out of nuclear energy as a feature of its policy. With a new government in 2009, the phase-out was cancelled, but then reintroduced in 2011, with eight reactors shut down immediately.
  • The cost of replacing nuclear power with renewables is estimated by the government to amount to some EUR 1000 billion.
  • Public opinion in Germany remains ambivalent and at present does not support building new nuclear plants.
  • More than half of Germany’s electricity was generated from coal in the first half of 2013, compared with 43% in 2010.
  • Germany has some of the lowest wholesale electricity prices in Europe and some of the highest retail prices, due to its energy policies.

Russia and China are pro nuclear. 

Australia has 31% of the world’s uranium, but no nuclear plants.  The majority of power comes from coal.

UK is adding more nuclear and imports Nuclear power from France through a DC power connection.

In the late 1990s, nuclear power plants contributed around 25% of total annual electricity generation in the UK, but this has gradually declined as old plants have been shut down and ageing-related problems affect plant availability.

In 2012, 363 billion kWh (TWh) of electricity was produced in UK. This comprised 70 TWh (19%) nuclear, 100 TWh (27.5%) from gas, 144 TWh (40%) from coal, 19.4 TWh from wind, 8 TWh hydro and 17 TWh from biofuels and wastes. Coal’s share of generation is at its highest level since 1996, with gas’s share at its lowest since 1996.

Net electricity imports from France – mostly nuclear – in 2012 were 12 billion kWh. There is a high-voltage DC connection with France with 2000 MW capacity, and a 1400 MWe link over 700 km with Norway is planned. Per capita UK electricity consumption was 5070 kWh in 2011.

The USA is 30% of the world’s nuclear power generation.

Nuclear Power in the USA

(Updated 30 October 2013)

  • The USA is the world's largest producer of nuclear power, accounting for more than 30% of worldwide nuclear generation of electricity.
  • The country's 104 nuclear reactors produced 821 billion kWh in 2011, over 19% of total electrical output. There are now 100 units operable and three under construction.
  • Following a 30-year period in which few new reactors were built, it is expected that 4-6 new units may come on line by 2020, the first of those resulting from 16 licence applications made since mid-2007 to build 24 new nuclear reactors.
  • However, lower gas prices since 2009 have put the economic viability of some of these projects in doubt.
  • Government policy changes since the late 1990s have helped pave the way for significant growth in nuclear capacity. Government and industry are working closely on expedited approval for construction and new plant designs.

And Japan which is living with the backlash of Fukushima.

Nuclear Power in Japan

(Updated 28 October 2013)

  • Japan needs to import about 84% of its energy requirements.
  • Its first commercial nuclear power reactor began operating in mid-1966, and nuclear energy has been a national strategic priority since 1973. This came under review following the 2011 Fukushima accident.
  • The country's 50 main reactors have provided some 30% of the country's electricity and this was expected to increase to at least 40% by 2017. The prospect now is for about half of this.
  • Japan has a full fuel cycle set-up, including enrichment and reprocessing of used fuel for recycle.
  • The process of regulatory clearance for restarting 50 reactors is slow and will take some years.

Despite being the only country to have suffered the devastating effects of nuclear weapons in wartime, with over 100,000 deaths, Japan embraced the peaceful use of nuclear technology to provide a substantial portion of its electricity. However, following the tsunami which killed 19,000 people and which triggered the Fukushima nuclear accident (which killed no-one), public sentiment shifted markedly so that there were wide public protests calling for nuclear power to be abandoned. The balance between this populist sentiment and the continuation of reliable and affordable electricity supplies is being worked out politically.

Developing a Winning Strategy, surviving the unknown

The Economist has a book review of Strategy: A History.

Why a strategy is not a plan

Strategies too often fail because more is expected of them than they can deliver

Nov 2nd 2013 |From the print edition

Strategy: A History. By Lawrence Freedman. Oxford University Press USA; 751 pages; $34.95. Buy from Amazon.com

The book is 751 pages, and I doubt I could discipline myself to read it.  Although, what is worthwhile is this nugget.

Over time, the word “strategy” has been drained of meaning by ubiquity and overuse. Sir Lawrence Freedman’s aim in his magisterial new book, “Strategy: A History”, is to find a workable definition of what strategy is and to show how it has evolved and been applied in war, politics and business. Above all, he argues, it is about employing whatever resources are available to achieve the best outcome in situations that are both dynamic and contested: “It is about getting more out of a situation than the starting balance of power would suggest. It is the art of creating power.”

A good lesson is in the closing of the review.

The sobering lesson after 630 pages of wide-ranging erudition and densely packed argument is that although it is usually better to have some kind of strategy than not, unless you are prepared to adapt it as circumstances change it is unlikely to do you much good.

I feel good about the strategy for services I am working on as we have spent over 3 years building on an organizational structure which has proven robust to adapt to changes.  What I guess I wound add is you need to think about how your group/company is organized with its staff as to whether they support an adaptable strategy.

GM Green's its data center

I’ve been staring at these browser tabs and have been meaning to post on GM’s green data center efforts.

Here is the official GM press release.  They focused on LEED.

GM’s LEED Gold Data Center Drives IT Efficiency

Fri, Sep 13 2013

WARREN, Mich. – A flywheel for battery-free backup power and in-row cooling that reduces the need for electricity contribute to a 70 percent reduction in energy use at General Motors’ world-class Enterprise Data Center, which has earned Gold certification by the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED, or Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, program.

Fewer than 5 percent of data centers in the U.S. achieve LEED certification, according to the building council. GM’s data hub on its Technical Center campus in this Detroit suburb is the company’s fifth LEED-certified facility and second brownfield project.

Arstechnica does a much better job of telling a story.

Waterfalls and flywheels: General Motors’ new hyper-green data center

Ars gets a look inside at the first GM-owned data center in nearly 20 years.

by  - Sept 15 2013, 2:00pm PDT

56
A look down the completed "data hall" of GM's Warren Enterprise Data Center. With 2,500 virtual servers up and running, the center is at a tiny fraction of its full capacity.
General Motors

WARREN, Michigan—General Motors has gone through a major transformation since emerging from bankruptcy three years ago.  Now cashflow-positive, the company is in the midst of a different transformation—a three-year effort to reclaims its own IT after 20 years of outsourcing.

Here are few more details.

Building a cloud, under one roof

Enlarge/ GM's IT Operations and Command Center, where all of GM's IT infrastructure—including its partner network, OnStar systems, and design and engineering systems—is monitored and controlled.

The first step in that transformation, Liedel said, was converting everyone running its IT operations to GM employees. Next came centralizing control over the company's widely-scattered IT assets.

So far, three of the company's 23 legacy data centers have been rolled into the new Warren data center. That's eliminated a significant chunk of the company's wide-area network costs. "We have 8,000 engineers at (Vehicle Engineering Center) here," Liedel said. And those engineers are pushing around big chunks of data—the "math" for computer-aided design, computer aided manufacturing, and a wide range of high-performance computing simulations

And. GM chose flywheels.

Almost no batteries required

One of the Warren Enterprise Data Center's two diesel generators.

Aside from its energy efficiency, GM's Warren Data Center picks up green cred in the way it handles its emergency power. Instead of using an array of lead-acid batteries to provide current in the event of an interruption of power, the data center is equipped with uninterruptible power supplies from Piller that use 15,000 pound flywheels spinning at 3,300 revolutions per minute.

 

Are you designing around The Fiction of Memory? your memory is fragile

I spend way too much time thinking about how to think.  It as actually something that has a word for it called metacognition.

Metacognition refers to one’s knowledge concerning one's own cognitive processes and products or anything related to them, e.g., the learning-relevant properties of information or data. For example, I am engaging in metacognition if I notice that I am having more trouble learning A than B; [or] if it strikes me that I should double check C before accepting it as fact.

—J. H. Flavell (1976, p. 232).

My wife says it much easier, “there you go thinking about thinking."

Here is something to get you thinking.  Our memory is fragile.

NewImage

The above is from this Ted Talk by Elizabeth Loftus on The Fiction of Memory.

Why go through all this? Because if you can design systems that account for people’s tendency to not be able to know when they are telling the fiction of their memory, you can see things others can’t.