Image by James Paramecio from Pixabay
By Jo Nova
Our PM is so smart he’s going to force data centres to use renewable energy. All the experts (that Big Government can buy) tell us renewables are the cheapest most wonderful kind of electricity, but just in case the executives of these high tech companies are a bit stupid and can’t figure this out, Anthony Albanese is going to make sure they don’t accidentally pick coal or gas. It’s so sweet of him…
It’s so Soviet.
Obviously when we’re forced to buy something, we know the other options are better. (Thanks for confirming it Mr Albanese).
Data centres will have “legal obligation” to BYO renewables, says PM, but LNP looms as spoiler
By Sophie Vorrath, Reneweconomy
Prime minister Anthony Albanese says data centre developers will have a “legal obligation” to meet their own energy needs by underwriting new renewable supply, in the first clear sign that the government’s bring-your-own power concept is more than just a polite request.
In a speech to the University of Sydney on Wednesday, Albanese announced a new federal government office to set a range of standards and guardrails that the booming AI industry will have to meet in Australia, to optimise investment and avoid unwanted social and economic impacts.
“This is our time to decide what AI looks like here in Australia,” the PM said in the speech. “It is not a question of ‘if’ or ‘when’ AI will transform our economy, we are past that. The question that matters, the choice that we have – is how?
“This is about Australia shaping the future, rather than letting the future shape us.”
Anthony Albanese is afraid the AI guys will turn up and buy cheap electricity direct from any underused coal or gas plants which is exactly what Chinese Crypto Miners wanted to do in 2018. They arranged to move in next to Redbank Coal power station in the Hunter Valley, and did an off-grid deal to buy bargain electricity direct at 8c per KWh. Meanwhile the people in the town nearby had to pay 28c per KWh for the government approved grid stuff.
This tells us how cheap coal power can really be.
Bitcoin mining’s growing demand for cheap energy revived a shuttered coal mine
Ashat Rathi, Quartz
Consumers there pay, on average, $A0.28 ($0.22) per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for electricity. But Hunter Energy, which owns Redbank, are offering the crypto miners electricity at a fraction of the cost. The “first-of-its-kind” deal, as the Age puts it, will see the crypto miners pay only A$0.08 per kWh in the day and A$0.05 per kWh at night. Hunter Energy told the Age that the price is feasible because the electricity produced at the coal power plant would go straight to the crypto miners, bypassing—and thus, presumably, avoiding the costs of using—the grid. (Quartz has reached out to Hunter Energy for a comment.)
Naturally in Australia, nothing is that simple, and in 2022 they were still working on it. As they were in 2023 — at that point they had lodged another plan to convert the power station to burn forest, I mean, waste wood. Obviously the original agreement with coal was too cheap, sensible and competitive for the government to approve.
Welcome to USSAustralia where we can use the worlds best resources to achieve absolutely nothing. By the time any high tech industry could set up here we’ll be bowing before the new masters of AI who were ten years ahead. And our slow expensive AI will be discovering new medical treatments twenty years after other people have patented them.
We’ll be paying for our crazy weather control plans for decades to come.
There was an item on the BBC yesterday whereby the large tech companies in the US who want vast Data centres have bought up decommissioned nuclear power stations because they want reliable power 24/7.
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“This is our time to decide what AI looks like here in Australia,”
Methinks the time has long past for much deciding, at least by such as your PM, or any of our alleged political representatives.
I’m given to understand we’re talking ‘hyperscale’ data centers.
Sorry great climate warriors, these creatures do not now and will not run on renewables.
Plus these things were in the works and up and running before politicians and citizens had an inkling what they are.
We would have a tough time finding out where those planned and as yet unbuilt will be placed.
I’ve ranted much about the intellectual decline of the managerial intelligentsia.
Whom have been apparently well trained and placed for purpose by the obscure but existent by inference executive intelligentsia.
I hope I will be allowed to make my Borg name One of Zero.
Being that I have historically failed at playing well with others.
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Joanne,
The issue you’re talking about is “available” energy. The marketing rules of the NEM were changed to allow renewables to deliver their intermittent energy when weather conditions suit them. That forced coal energy producers to throttle their production, creating the now well understood Duck Curve every sunny day. A similar thing happens to wind generation.
What it means for coal generators is that they have heaps of unused energy capacity available, that they can sell directly to a customer outside the NEM, generating additional revenue.
This is just like the process the ACT government used to become “100% renewable”. Nothing change in terms of grid connectivity. It was the ACT government signing contracts with renewable energy suppliers to offset the equivalent amount of energy consumed by the ACT.
Our coal generators will be lining up for data centre investors. Spare land, lots of industrial water used for cooling, and lots of available generation capacity is a win-win for everyone except the government. Why? Because if coal generators remain profitable, any money they get from data centres only needs to just cover their additional costs, and then it’s pure profit!
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Well Albo, that won’t work. Data Centres need cheap reliable energy and water.
Ruinables are not the answer. You moron.
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