The headline makes no sense to me and the article crosses over 2 problems in the energy transition.
Microsoft is only involved in purchasing the power, not the facility itself. In my understanding, that means that Constellation is the only party here involved in the government backed loan. Noting also that the loan itself is not malicious, nor is its use to restart the facility - if nuclear facilities should not be funded or have any special tax status then that should have been considered in the government’s legislation.
The 2nd part about the power from the plant going to grid, and not to Microsoft’s data centres directly is a known issue which close to all companies exploit by buying green certificates which I understand are currently done monthly in some areas. That means we do not trace that each electron provided to a user was from renewables, instead we aggregate that a company (via purchasing “green” certificates) shows that enough “green” electricity, anywhere on a connection, was produced to cover their usage for that month. This has nothing to do with Microsoft, their data centres, or this facility in general but is currently being dealt with. It will be clear in the power purchasing agreement how much power Microsoft will purchase from the facility directly and how it is delivered.
Am I missing something?
And no, I don’t think nuclear power is overly helpful given the exorbitant cost, time and waste aspects
I appreciate your post but I disagree with your premise on cost. It is not worth it if you are a company looking for a quick turn around, but it is still the cheapest long term. Also waste is not the issue it once was, though it is still an issue.
The biggest issue with nuclear is NIMBYism and stigma. (And going with lowest bidder contractors)
Regarding the second part, there really is little difference between buying clean power here versus there. The net carbon spend goes down just exactly enough
The only place it does matter is if you live near a coal plant you can’t directly fix your locality by buying green energy certificates
The headline makes no sense to me and the article crosses over 2 problems in the energy transition.
Microsoft is only involved in purchasing the power, not the facility itself. In my understanding, that means that Constellation is the only party here involved in the government backed loan. Noting also that the loan itself is not malicious, nor is its use to restart the facility - if nuclear facilities should not be funded or have any special tax status then that should have been considered in the government’s legislation.
The 2nd part about the power from the plant going to grid, and not to Microsoft’s data centres directly is a known issue which close to all companies exploit by buying green certificates which I understand are currently done monthly in some areas. That means we do not trace that each electron provided to a user was from renewables, instead we aggregate that a company (via purchasing “green” certificates) shows that enough “green” electricity, anywhere on a connection, was produced to cover their usage for that month. This has nothing to do with Microsoft, their data centres, or this facility in general but is currently being dealt with. It will be clear in the power purchasing agreement how much power Microsoft will purchase from the facility directly and how it is delivered.
Am I missing something?
And no, I don’t think nuclear power is overly helpful given the exorbitant cost, time and waste aspects
I appreciate your post but I disagree with your premise on cost. It is not worth it if you are a company looking for a quick turn around, but it is still the cheapest long term. Also waste is not the issue it once was, though it is still an issue.
The biggest issue with nuclear is NIMBYism and stigma. (And going with lowest bidder contractors)
Regarding the second part, there really is little difference between buying clean power here versus there. The net carbon spend goes down just exactly enough
The only place it does matter is if you live near a coal plant you can’t directly fix your locality by buying green energy certificates