Check out Soluna’s GENIUS Solution for Wind Farms! geni.us/Soluna

@solarcabin

7 ай бұрын

A better use for that excess power is to use it to produce green hydrogen and ammonia fuels that will replace fossil fuels for ships, trains, busses and big rigs.

@surters

7 ай бұрын

Here much of the excess is put into district heating, saving fuel and bio mass.

@zodiacfml

7 ай бұрын

this likely a smart idea a few years ago but terrible idea by today's recent changes. LiFePO4 batteries or packs have become so cheap these days that it is better to store the wind farm's energy in batteries than have expensive data center (AI, crypto, server) equipment to shutdown when grid requires more/pays more for power. If you're a company that has talent both in wind and datacenters then it is good but still need batteries for this because you need to minimize downtime for compute.

@gavindownes2213

7 ай бұрын

what happens if you dont shave for a week ? im picturing ZZ Top :) (also love your vids)

@goiterlanternbase

7 ай бұрын

@@solarcabinLike most industrial processes, they are hard to stop or even regulate, because the changing heat load puts mechanical stress to the components. Especially the catalytic converters are ceramic materials, who tend to crack. A intermediate storage is necessary and so far we have found none, we are willing to pay for, or that is scalable. I guess. it is better to store the energy in a simpler chemical process, even if the fuel is solid.

Sounds like combining wind power with desalination would be really wise too. Especially with more and more places having fresh water issues.

@MH-Tesla

7 ай бұрын

Good idea. I was thinking the same thing. It would also provide the water for the cooling 😊.

@jonnyde

7 ай бұрын

Just thinkin .. off shore wind used to desalinate sea water 'in place' and piped onshore following the same track the under water power cables use.

@DavidHalko

6 ай бұрын

@@jonnyde- or offshore wind turbines pumping Hydrogen back to land, to place in storage tanks, and supplement the Natural Gas grid, to replace natural gas… imagine splitting hydrogen from sea water because the value of energy is negative & making money on H2

@jamesengland7461

6 ай бұрын

Yes! We could desalinate and pump the water upstream to reservoirs intermittently, only using surplus power. We could thereby further the use of hydro as stored power as well.

@aygwm

6 ай бұрын

Desalination is more complex than just running power to it… the brine left over afterwards is a huge problem

I've heard of one wind farm in the UK that uses excess electricity to electrolyse water to make hydrogen that it feeds into the national gas grid. The volume is small enough that no-one burning gas needs to modify their burners, but that excess electricity does reduce the amount of natural gas burned.

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

very interesting! can you just mix hydrogen gas with natural gas?

@massimookissed1023

7 ай бұрын

@TwoBitDaVinci Apparently that's what they do, just add some some hydrogen into the fossil natural gas. Power stations and domestic boilers & ovens that burn gas end up burning some wind-generated hydrogen too.

@AlessandroRodriguez

6 ай бұрын

Is that affordable? How do you pressurise that without eating all the profits?

@deep470

6 ай бұрын

​@@TwoBitDaVinci german natural gas provider enbw says that up to 30% are possible on our grid as it is right now. ​ @AlessandroRodriguez normally it's not. But if you generate hydrogen when you can't put the power into the grid, it is.

@TheCBScott7

6 ай бұрын

What a waste...

This is why I love this channel. You're always selecting the most interesting topics and it's fascinating how people are solving them!

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

so amazing to hear... it really is the funnest part... so much cleverness in the world

Hey Ricky, I'm a retired engineer and have thought about this demand factor problem for years. Two ways it could also work out is this: Smelting, like recycled aluminum cans, requires considerable power. A small operation near a wind farm could melt and pour billets in a few minutes in between demand spikes. The operation would only need a few employees. Second idea is cold storage of crops, meats, or even paper records. A few minutes or hours of time are not very important because of something called the refrigeration flywheel. Major startup is hard and expensive. Small added cooling is not nearly as expensive. Both of the ideas make intense energy batteries at a lower cost. Prodution efficency is over the top.

Nice to see someone has actually done this. I own a datacenter, building second one and something similar has been on the roadmap. We also run outside air cooling in conjunction with AC units, we run regular servers so need to maintain less than 40C intake on servers even on hottest summer days so both are required. Our next DC will not have magnetic drives at all anymore, so we are planning to have only marginal AC units, mostly outside air circulation and heating up rest of the building with the waste heat. In theory we could reach a "negative PUE" (below 1.00) over the coming decade, by utilizing the waste heat.

@iwiffitthitotonacc4673

7 ай бұрын

I'm curious - wouldn't it make sense to have AC cooling alongside evaporative cooling? Since AC has water as a byproduct, one could use the water for evaporative cooling - a bit more power is used but less water is used, but it still uses less power than pure AC and less water than pure EC.

@goiterlanternbase

7 ай бұрын

And you really have time un-critical tasks for your machines? Or better say, you can afford to have machines standing around, doing nothing? Perhaps weeks on end?(even when it is more likely to be hours, but you know, winter is comming😏) I mean, i really embrace such type of excess value. We will need a lot of this, if battery storage is the future, but will the shareholders see this necessity to?

@WJV9

6 ай бұрын

@@goiterlanternbase - If it wasn't profitable the data center wouldn't exist. BTW the energy cycle he is describing happens daily so there will always be excess wind energy every evening when the offices shut down and people go to bed.

@cannednolan8194

6 ай бұрын

Have you seen the fans that run off the heat of a wood stove. What if you could trap your heat and use a version of that to cool if moving away from ac or generate power?

@Fluxkompressor

6 ай бұрын

@@cannednolan8194 These things run of the difference between your stove and an heatsink The greater the difference, the greater the efficiency TEG or thermo electric generator is the name of that thning The efficiency isn't that great, about 2% at 150K differential in temperature (that is 270°F difference) So if you manage to keep the heatsink at 120°F and your stove gets to 390°F you are fine, but CPUs aren't happy at 390°F half the temperature difference and the efficiency drops to either half or a quarter, i don't remember

I've passed several windmills that have their blade pitch parallel to the wind, and I've always wondered why they were set to not generate energy. I'm glad you covered this!

@user-tp5yb4hr4w

6 ай бұрын

the vertical wind turbines are designed far more efficient than these, but i suspect they will eventually upgrade to the vertical ones when the other design ones die or break down. just look up vertical wind turbines, they are the way to go, but some of them still have some bad design choices, i have only seen one of them that works best for the majority of situations, there are a lot of them that come with some bad choice designs that don't do that well. i would send a link to one that is the best, but youtube doesn't like accounts like mine posting links because i haven't given them my identity, so youtube pretty much treats me like spam if i try and post any link, only verified people can post links, i'm just too poor for that direction.

@SimPitTech

4 ай бұрын

they generate energy when it's the least needed and fail to generate energy when it's the most needed.

@brianwest2775

4 ай бұрын

The turbine could also be down for maintenance.

The cooling issue in co-located data centers/wind farms could be greatly enhanced by creating an ice Bank using an ammonia refrigeration system when there's excess power for use during high power demand .

@thesayn3ver

6 ай бұрын

Couldn't we go back a ways and use a standard Co-gen model with data centers. Seems like utilizing waste heat for local domestic hot water would be an option. Most CPU's operate at or near domestic hot water temperatures. Could certainly start doing some clever planning where a data center and a manufacturer that requires 85-100f water/heat could coexist.

@orionbetelgeuse1937

6 ай бұрын

ammonia refrigeration systems are based on absorption and use heat as the source of power and they could be powered very well using conventional power plants which produce waste heat.

This was a very well done video!!! Like, really well thought out, written, produced. That is so rare on KZread! Good job.

Power Usage Effectiveness *(PUE)* is determined by dividing the total amount of power entering a data center by the power used to run the IT equipment within it. PUE is expressed as a ratio, with overall efficiency improving as the quotient decreases toward 1.0.

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

absolutely ... many data centers try to get close to 1, but don't include water used for evaporative cooling, others don't including AC and other cooling... there are a lot of tricks played when you look closey. Next time you see someone claim they're carbon neutral, ask them, "what about water use?"

@jamesalles139

7 ай бұрын

@@TwoBitDaVinci Indeed. Air conditioning with water-cooled condensers is significant enough, but there is also a possible 'emergency cooling' where city water is directly used for cooling and immediately dumped down the drain. Aside from pumping, it uses very little 'energy'. I wonder how much of an issue the clearly visible dust is at this installation.

I'm really glad I subscribe Ricky It's been a year or two and I haven't watched all of your videos. But I can honestly say I've never been disappointed. As a matter of fact you're kicking ass!

Such a great video. I loved it, and I loved Soluna's solution! Keep it up Ricky!

This is actually pretty smart. Microsoft is building a new datacenter down the road from me and a friend of mine has the electric design to supply the buildings from a substation a few miles away... They need 40MW STARTING OUT... they're going to build their own substation and buy even more directly from ATC. Crazy.

This was a very good view into things we don't think about related to our Internet culture. Thanks for telling this story!

“When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.” ~Don Quixote

@guavaball

7 ай бұрын

I'd put the efficiency of a wall against a windmill any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

@zAlaska

7 ай бұрын

Indeed, these are the days of walls

@giggitygiggitygoofg6069

7 ай бұрын

Too late for walls.

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

brilliant!

@kieranh2005

7 ай бұрын

Was this when Don Quixote wasn't trying to charge them with his lance?

I absolutely love learning about this kind of creative engineering thinking… Thanks so much for doing this 🙏

Yes! I've been waiting for someone to investigate this. You are the perfect channel to do it! Good on ya mate!

Great overview in a well thought approach to the Data Center / renewable VPP opportunity in ERCOT (and hopefully other places in the future)… would love to see the complete version of the integration of this with wind, solar, and batteries along with geothermal integrated cooling. Great first step… would love to see this take those next steps!

Now, That was interesting. Water. Never thought about how much is used cooling those farms. I am a little surprised about those that are using swamp coolers. I thought chips don't like high humidity. Amarillo is a great place for wind farms!

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

the data centers have constantly pass through... so moisture isn't building up, fresh dry area is constantly being sucked in... so its like the opposite of a sealed tight conditioned space

Thank you for bringing awareness to the issue. I had no idea of the wind farm generation issue nor the power consumption of computing. Great video Ricky!

This might be the best topic you have brought to your channel! Thanks

This is great! Soluna sounds like a interesting company to research 🔬 🎉

I'm constantly coming across examples of the complexity of our current man-made world systems and realize just how the majority of people do not have any idea how fragile it is. I worry that the scale of complexity will eventually create a situation were one small glitch will crash the whole thing. Despite my cynical outlook I do appreciate your video on this innovative system and the people who put it together......👍👍

@davestagner

7 ай бұрын

One of the things I like best about solar + batteries is it makes largely independent sub-grids possible, scaled all the way down to a single building. Grid failures suck, and the grid is fragile. So try to not depend on the grid.

@Metapharsical

7 ай бұрын

@@davestagner you think adding more complexity and cost will make the grid more robust? Interesting .. And you believe building owners now responsible for maintaining PV panels, windmills, batteries, and the circuitry.. will see a return-on-investment? I guess time will tell..

@davestagner

7 ай бұрын

@@Metapharsical “Adding more complexity and cost” with localized generation/storage will make individual buildings and complexes more robust, by making them partially or fully independent from a demonstrably unreliable grid. I have personally experienced multi-day grid outages. Many, maybe most of us have. But if I can turn to the grid if my solar/battery fails, and also use my solar/battery if the grid fails, then my house will be much more robust. Moreover, if the amortized cost of a solar/battery system over its lifespan (decades) is cheaper than that of buying electricity from the grid over the same period, then I win. If it’s several times cheaper (and it usually is), then I win BIG. That alone is motivation for commercial customers, and we’re seeing that shift already. As for maintenance… a solar panel has no moving parts. It has no chemical reactions, and does not consume fuel. Current production panels lose 0.3-0.5%/year output due to glass wear and corrosion at the external electrical connection. They could continue to produce usable energy for a century or more! What “maintenance” are you talking about? Batteries need eventual replacement, but not “maintenance”, and they’ll tell you their condition. Windmills generally aren’t practical for individual buildings, but if they were, maintenance would probably be outsourced. Speaking of which… I pay for someone to maintain my gas furnace. It’s the second gas furnace in this house in 20 years, and it also needs replaced, before it fails and leaves my house cold, or develops a carbon monoxide leak that could kill me in my sleep. I will not install another gas furnace - I’m looking for ways to best electrify my heat. Also thinking of maintenance… do you think the grid itself requires no maintenance? Or is it just something you don’t experience directly, but rather pay for in your bill?

@Metapharsical

7 ай бұрын

@@davestagner I'm guessing you live in a fortuitous latitude where there is no snow, dust, falling leaves, or clouds. Must be nice having such reliable weather 👍 It would be such a bother if you had to go up on your roof and clean the panels regularly and/or cut down all the trees in the vicinity. "Usable energy for Centuries" ... Oh, come on now...enough power left to light a small strip of LEDS probably... No, you'll just be throwing them in a landfill in ten years and buying newer/better because you're simply enamored with the tech. If you really cared about the planet, you'd worry about *one thing* and that is: China's unrelenting, massive over-production of wasteful consumer goods using >80% coal power. + their massive fishing/shipping fleets and dragnets that account for the majority of the ocean pollution. You're doing nothing to help. In fact, your "renewables" were probably produced in China in coal powered factories with forced labor 🤡 👍

@heathwirt8919

7 ай бұрын

Power generating systems and electrical distribution has always been complex regardless of the energy source. This complexity doesn't necessarily mean they are fragile and in fact most of these systems are fairly robust if properly designed, managed and maintained.

Wow, thanks Ricky, very interesting and much more complicated then I thought it would be.

Thank you for this really informative video. I have been a proponent of renewables but never got the whole picture and felt nervous about it . this helped to make the whole picture clear.

I keep thinking to myself, free energy (curtailed renewables)? Somebody will figure out a use. Thanks for finding this.

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

seriously! I had no idea how high the waste % was... this will hurt future developers from building them, if they're so wasteful... we def need a solution like this one

@AerialWaviator

6 ай бұрын

Battery Energy Storage is a much better option for wind turbine operators, as it offers higher profits. For example Hornsdale Wind Farm in Australia installed Battery Energy Storage in 2017 and recouped the costs of the project within 2.5 years. The wind farm was also able to offer grid stabilization services which supplemented being able to sell their energy at higher profit. Traditionally gas peaker plants have been used to offer grid stabilizing services. These plants would be mostly idle, or curtailed producing emissions, and wasting fuel. Energy storage does much better job of stabilizing the 60 Hz frequency of the grid as larger loads come and go as they can respond instantly, without wasting energy.

Yo Rick, this one was on point dude! You should consider getting more involved with this tech!

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

yeah I really enjoyed this one

This is cool! I worked in energy retail so a lot of it I knew and skipped. But the water and fans, wow! ❤

And demand management is another way of approaching intermittency. I don't mean that we shouldn't co-locate data centers with wind farms or that we shouldn't tailor demand to intermittent production. We should recognize, however, that the real solution to this problem is storage and probably one specific kind of storage -- batteries.

Great video, the intermittent nature of wind can make big problems on the power grid. You made me laugh when you said the production can change hour to hour. I’ve watched a medium sized wind farm change hundreds of MW’s scan to scan and that’s at a six second scan. When sighting wind farms they make sure the capacity to get the power out is there but seldom study if the room will actually be available on the transmission system or energy needed. We handled it by sending curtailment base points and flags to the wind farms and backing them down since the energy they were competing with was base loaded must run hydro electric. You might think just back off the hydro and store the water, nice if you can do it but not very practical when your on a river and backing off production will ground ships down the river. Moving intermittent computer processing into a load pocket behind a bottleneck is probably a better idea than the alternative of grid scale batteries and scheduled production when transmission or loading allows. Mentioning the cooling aspect is another great point. Just as some people store excess energy as heat, there have also been successful demonstrations where people store low cost energy in the form of large blocks of ice for cooling at a later time when the cost of energy is higher.

@CptNogg

6 ай бұрын

second to second.

Really fascinating video. Use of graphics and the way you edited in the company spokesman, really good. Once question I have is what happens when the wind stops for a multi-day period? Does the data center just stay shutdown on standby or at some point do the data center clients say they need to buy power and turn their data center on?

@leax_Flame

7 ай бұрын

I’d say redundancy plays a role. I’d imagine the goal is to have hundreds of these so that at any given moment there will be multiple possible servers for a client to use. Considering the intermittent use of some servers this makes a lot of sense.

@h8GW

7 ай бұрын

I don't think it's possible for wind to stop for multiple days in places where they want to put turbines, like windy plains or miles offshore.

It's good to see such versatility.

This was a good one for me. Thanks!

Great episode. I also had never considered the water debt of the cloud. I just knew about the enormous amounts of water used by chip fabs. The internet is not very green.

@WJV9

6 ай бұрын

I would think that 'evaporative cooling' only happens in dry, desert environments, trying to evaporative cool when the relative humidity is 80 to 95% is a waste of time/energy. You need low humidity places like desert SW and western desert country to use that type of cooling.

Nice topic. Where I grew up in Wales, they had pumped hydro as a kind of battery. I always saw this as a bit of an accountancy trick because they essentially pumped water up the mountain when electricity was cheap, and then allowed that water to be used to generate when demand was high. But now the same mechanism can be used to fill the reservoir when renewables outweigh demand and then supply when demand outweighs the renewables. There are issues with this, only certain parts of the world have suitable terrain and if the lakes top and bottom were natural then there are environmental issues if the water is no longer flowing at the same rate. But surely we also need to be looking at storage options in conjunction with renewable energy. We have been told we need that in our homes with battery storage and solar or variable tariffs. Why is it unreasonable to expect the grid to handle the buffering of energy?

@kaneworsnop1007

7 ай бұрын

The grid already is, unfortunately they are behind when it comes to sporadic renewables. There was lots of investment into renewables, but it was only once they were being rolled out on mass anybody actually thought of the obvious question of how do we store this energy to make it feasible.

@waynemanning3262

6 ай бұрын

Creating electricity is easy, storing it is the elephant in the room.

@chrissmith2114

6 ай бұрын

Storing the unreliable output from renewables is the elephant in the room, because storing it is the very, very, very expensive bit. The peak of solar ( but not really a peak in winter, more of a molehill ) is shifted by many hours from the peak of demand.... Wind can disappear for weeks at a time, often during the coldest 'high pressure' weather systems that can park themselves over large areas, when the isobars go into 'social distancing mode'...

@chrissmith2114

6 ай бұрын

@@kaneworsnop1007 Greenies do not like to talk about the feasibility and cost of storage

Fascinating! Please consider following up and doing more videos about this topic.

An Amazingly informative video! Well done!

Would you consider taking a look at blade longevity, recycling and disposal? Last I heard, they were throwing them in a hole in the ground in Wyoming, because the material they’re made from is so tough, it’s unrecyclable.

@mbengambenga-xi6dp

7 ай бұрын

It's weird how silly claims "we re running out of landfill room" can persist. I guess we literally are too lazy to do math to see which issues are small so idiot issues keep being mentioned and distracting us. This is harmful, people skipping math and yelling about small problems.. Lower 48 states has 2,000,000,000 acres. ""The average landfill size is 600 acres. With over 3,000 active landfills in the United States, as much as 1,800,000 acres of habitat have been lost. ". This is counting a buffer around landfills which really is usable if needed. This is 1/1000 of land. And it's usually worthless land,.hilly so bad for farms, and can choose far from city. . . . And we know how to do leak proof landfills. By math this ain't a problem. It's not even expensive it's such a small issue. """ The average municipal solid waste (MSW) landfill tipping fee in the United States increased 0.6 percent in 2021 to 53.04 U.S. dollars per ton."'"". This is $53/2000 pounds so 3 cents a pound. To dispose of 1 persons 1500 pounds a year costs city to landfill $45. Soooooo. An American throwing away 1500 pounds of leaves, plastics, and metal into a safe hole taking up 1% of worthless land ain't a problem. Adding a bit via old wind blades and solar panels aint a problem .... No one dies from landfill leakage, zero, so let's skip this issue darn it,.are we incapable of math????.. . . . .. . . . . . . Each American does cause 15 tons so 30,000 pounds of co2 into air, along with airborne ash, chemicals, and still lead, which ain't inert or going in hole. This is a problem. My neighbors garbage won't hurt my kid, but his diesel exhaust does cause cancer at low rates... . 3rd world without catalytic converters or remote power plants is even worse air, air pollution kills 5% there 5 years early (US is small 0.1% from air pollution). .

@davestagner

7 ай бұрын

Yeah, that’s propaganda. The fossil fuel industry’s dark money is doing its best to make clean renewable energy feel like the “dirty” choice. Think about where you’re hearing this from, and where THEY heard it from. Or, make a comparison point. A road surface lasts about as long as a wind turbine (20 years). Then that concrete all needs to be ripped up and disposed of, and it’s not recyclable in a meaningful way. And there are a LOT more roads by weight or volume than there are turbine blades. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a million times more concrete in roads by volume than there is volume of wind turbines (I have no idea, really). Now, have you EVER heard ANYONE who is worrying about “What will we do with all those turbine blades?” ask what we do with all the concrete we throw away when a road gets rebuilt? No, of course not. We don’t think about it at all, really. That’s why I say this is propaganda, not a serious issue. edit for data: As of Jan 2022, there were more than 70,800 wind turbines in the US. That’s pushing a quarter million turbine blades. That’s a lot! There are also 4.19 million miles of roads in the US. How much concrete is in each mile of those roads? A relatively large wind turbine blade is about 150 feet long. Laid end to end, there would be about 35 per mile. Every turbine blade in the US, end to end, would cover about 6250 miles, give or take. Does this help clarify how biased this concern about turbine blade disposal is?

@user-or4hs7xq9u

7 ай бұрын

Yes, not green at all if the spinny thing is a recycling nightmare

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

we've done a video on it! kzread.info/dash/bejne/rJiHpM6jecbJmNY.html

@mbengambenga-xi6dp

7 ай бұрын

@@user-or4hs7xq9u ... Recycling is not required to be green. We dont recycle and reuse pumpkin rhine when making pumpkin pie, or banana peels, yet these are pretty green. Putting inert materials in a hole safely that won't leak is pretty green. Everything is relative. Putting 10 tons in a landfill is green if it avoids a small natural gas generator putting out 10000000 tons of co2, spot, benzene, cancer chemicals. Choose, live near a gas power plant or a landfill, 1 will cause zero illness and other about 1000 cases per million residents.. turbines are pretty green, yes not magically perfect what the F is magically perfect..

The good thing is because everything is digital today it produces far less heat than way back in the late nineteen fifties when analog dominated with vacuum tubes, etc. That's when I worked with mainframe computers requiring massive cooling. A typical equipment room was kept at 55 degrees or less... often a LOT less! Everybody went around in heavy coats, hoodies and gloves even when the outdoor temps were 90 or 100.

@Deontjie

7 ай бұрын

55 degrees is so hot that you can not touch it for more than 10 seconds.

@namepending155

7 ай бұрын

@@Deontjiehe is using freedom units

@jamesengland7461

6 ай бұрын

​@@Deontjiethink 13 °C

This was brilliant! Thank you!

Interesting subject i love all his videos there's always something different and educational

Thats a really impressive video - I had an idea this was a major issue but as you said there is very little mention of this in the main stream. I mean its pretty obvious really as even our little home system require significant cooling...but when your drawing a megawatt or 10 and 30-40% is waste heat - thats a lot of heat. In a really smart world we'd use that degraded heat energy to heat homes in cold countries or maybe dry crops or facilitate chemical processes. Or even just store in low grade heat banks for evening use. Process heat.

@matthodel946

7 ай бұрын

Good thinking.

@outlaw26aow61

6 ай бұрын

Good idea like methane from landfills for power generation. It would have to be localized. Like massive data centers for heat to a steam turbine. What's your thoughts?

This is pretty cool, though I'm thinking that it might be more of a mid-term temporary solution (next 20 years or so) because energy storage also more or less fixes the curtailment problem. As energy storage on the grid increases, curtailments decreases and price swings narrow. Now the price swings will not narrow completely, otherwise there would be no incentive to store the energy. But they will probably narrow sufficiently that renewables generation won't need to curtail.

@rockyblacksmith

4 ай бұрын

Storage always comes with a loss. So having a customer who buys surplus whenever available will always be more cost-effective. It's probaly the mix of solutions that will solve the problem, not a single one across the board.

broo i travel alot and i did noticed that out in the plains i would see per every one that was running there was always a few that wouldn't be spinning and i always wondered and this video was so informative thank you.

I don’t think we understand how much energy is needed for so many things to make our lives better , but at what cost ? The comparison of energy used to run the internet vs. jet travel was an eye opener ! I learned something from your video! 👍

Finally people being creatively diverse with energy problems

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

i know! this was a really fun one... i learned a ton

The solution is storage. That's the killer app. Co-location doesn't make the problem worse, but it also only solves a small part of it.

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

storage is expensive, this is a two birds with one stone approach. without something like this, we'll keep wasting green energy, and keep building more data centers

@nickgiannotti3775

7 ай бұрын

@@TwoBitDaVinci storage will eventually come down in cost with improved battery technologies. Store cheap, use during peak. Putting computer farms down and up can cause reliability issues.

@bobbresnahan8397

7 ай бұрын

@@TwoBitDaVinci Storage is the most expensive item, but its price is falling. Solar fell 87.5% during the decade beginning 2010. Storage is falling at more or less the same rate -- declining by half 3 times each decade. That will continue for at least another decade. Also, storage is recyclable. Tesla co-founder Straubl says batteries are 995 recylable. Rethinkx outlines the formula for SWB. No one else comes close to the accuracy of their predictions.

@jimbonater

6 ай бұрын

@@bobbresnahan8397 This would require crazy amounts of storage and there are loses in charging and retrieving the power. From an efficiency stand point this is as good as it will get.

Excellent video man

What a great video. Keep up the good work

Thanks Ricky, for always bringing great and informative info to us all. With all the trash, B.S , lies and smoke and mirrors, it's great knowing you bring the truth. Please continue the great content.

I'm always wondering if we can harvest that excess heat as energy to power the cooling process.

Can't wait to see the global interconnectivity, energy markets sound fun.

Such a fascinating video!!

Imagine if more people implemented great ideas like this.

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

i think about it all the time!

@manoo422

7 ай бұрын

What to do with excess power is hardly a difficult problem, try thinking about would you do on a calm day...

@jerryinmon2731

7 ай бұрын

​@@manoo422That's where grid scale batteries and other energy storage technologies will come into play. There is no such thing as a silver bullet. We are going to need many different technologies to transition to renewable energy.

@manoo422

7 ай бұрын

@@jerryinmon2731 "grid scale batteries" there are no such thing. "energy storage technologies" you mean fantasy... "many different technologies" most currently not invented, the few that are available are fantastically expensive. Renewables are NOT a solution to anything, they are the PROBLEM.

@jerryinmon2731

6 ай бұрын

@manoo422 Your completely wrong. There are already grid scale batteries already working and making huge amounts of money for their owners. So believe what you want to believe.

So this might be a dumb question but is there a way to capture the waste energy generated from the data centers? For example, a generator powered by a Sterling engine? Would that be economically viable?

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

I thought about this too! ANYTHING but a dumb question... it's complex and tricky, but as we optimize more and more, yes I can totally see the computer generated heat, acutally being used for productive purposes!

@ThePentosin

7 ай бұрын

There are already data centers that use the heat to heat homes.

Man, 2BD chart game about 2:00 in is off the chain! Well presented!!

I have wondered about the non spinning turbines too. Thank you for revealing that dirty little secret.

When I drive by a power plant I see large transmission lines coming from it. When I drive for hours across KS and NE and see wind farm after wind farm I notice something missing - large transmission lines. Makes me wonder how much energy is really produced.

@TwoBitDaVinci

7 ай бұрын

there's usually a big transformer box somewhere, it isn't always very visible, they try to hide it as much as possible. for safety, security and its an eye sore

@chrisbellttu

7 ай бұрын

Most of the collection lines that feed from wind turbines to the substation are buried under ground as well. Should only see transmission lines from the substation out to the grid.

Thanks for a very well explained video on green energy economics.

Very cool, thank you!

How about using the excess to produce hydrogen

I drove through palm springs one day and saw thousands of these things crapping up the landscape. None of them were spinning. I thought maybe there wasn't any wind that day, then i noticed a single windmill spinning fast right in between several stationary ones. Im sure their city council is patting themselves on the back for all the clean energy they make.

@Ryan-ff2db

7 ай бұрын

Clean energy can work just fine, but California has been building it out just to build it out, and solve the problems associated with it later. This is part of the reason California energy prices are so high, although to be honest California has bigger energy issues than this. If you look at Texas they have over twice renewable build out as California but California's prices are 3 times that of Texas. North Dakota has the most renewables per capita and their rates are almost 4x time less than California. This makes it very clear that the problem with California's energy grid isn't renewables, it's the lack of intelligent build out and government interference.

@blaydCA

7 ай бұрын

If you saw ONLY one spinning fast. That one turbine was probably an older completely broken unit free wheeling. Some of those turbines actually date back to 1975! If none of them are turning, there’s not enough wind. If some are turning, but not many, then there isn’t enough demand for their power and they’re shut down to save mechanical wear on very expensive parts rather than to export power at a financial loss. Southern California has a LOT of solar power added to the mix.

@michaellowe3665

7 ай бұрын

@blaydCA it was a nice day in the low 70s. Most likely, they just couldn't use the energy, so they had them all shut down. There are large ones with small ones between them and it was one of the small ones that was spinning. The point is that they look like crap, were a huge waste of money, and are about as useful as Springfield's monorail.

@blaydCA

7 ай бұрын

@@michaellowe3665 yeah, the small ones with the steel frame towers are from the 70's, so it was free wheeling. Agreed, it used to be "pretty" when there were some. Now it's just an eyesore with wall to wall units. For a while there were a lot of dead ones left unfixed. They've finally repowered most of them. I guess it beats looking at a coal plant belching toxic smoke though.

@blaydCA

7 ай бұрын

@@Ryan-ff2db that was the case a couple years back. Texas has had some real issues this year, similar to California. Texas had to step in and outlaw those "price on demand" suppliers after their winter debacle. They're also underinvested when it comes to residential customers distribution. ERCOT had some real close calls this summer. Both states had issues with reduced hydro, which they both use for spinning reserves to even out the grid.

Interesting video. Thanks

Excellent video !

There was talk years ago about building server farms in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska using natural gas to make power. Much of the year the temperatures are below freezing which lessens the AC load.

Just imagine a centre where computing, power generation AND de-salinisation come together. It would be incredibly efficient.

Great video, thanks! EOS Energy makes relatively inexpensive Zinc batteries that can address this problem as well. The future of renewables is changing so fast.

Good explanation.

It's a good idea. Large, local users with exclusive contracts for surplus power. As long as the customer's demand timing is flexible it makes sense. Another good use for surplus renewables near the coast would be intermittent operation of water desalination plants to top up local supplies, or pipe inland to drier areas, with the brine used for recovering salt (and anything else that can be recovered).

Thank you so much for introduction.

This is interesting. It also shows another reason we need to be improving the efficiency of our computers and the way we write our code. I’d be curious if anyone evaluated the energy saving from switch to an CISC system, such as the x86, to a RISC system, as the ARM, as an example? Of course we’d need to be factoring in any potential impacts on processing time.

Well done

Shout out from Northern Alabama. Loving hydroelectric

I have seen many wind turbines not rotating within working fields. Speaking with service techs, they say that they are broken. The bearings have temp sensors on them so they don't destroy themselves due to lack of maintenance or just needing general service. The turbines have brakes that will set automatically when the bearings get too hot. Biggest problem with wind farms is lack of funding for maintenance. The federal government funds the wind farms with grants and subsidies but when left to succeed on their own can quickly fall into disrepair without proper management. The operators that bought the original wind turbines for large scale wind farms were also told that the blades would last the lifetime of the generator just to find out later that they would have to be replaced on a regular basis. They are just made of balsa wood and fiberglass and have a shelf life with the elements and stresses placed apon them. California has many older wind farms that went belly up decades ago. Texas has far surpassed any other state in wind, just recently solar and obviously petroleum. So far renewable energy is just supplemental enery onto the main grid and cannot replace petroleum, coal and nuclear. I am completely for new technologies, but everthing that the federal government pushes before it is ready for prime time fails miserably. Just like lithium battery cars. One day an electric cars and even heavy haul trucks will be powered by batteries but lithium batteries will not be the power source. The government pushes these technologies with good intentions but they are not creators, only takers. The government didn't create the automobiles or the infrastructure "gas stations" to support them. When the technology arrives people will buy it because it works well and whoever creates it will become very wealthy. Government needs to get out of the way. I apologize forbthe long rant, just the way i see things😂

Best video yet 👍

Sorry you were in Amarillo and I didn't know. I would love to have taken you around the sites...not many. At least we got to chat in Vancouver. I'll tell you I've never heard of Soluna nor what they do here in the area. Nice to see someone is thinking of how to use that excess power.

I was a little lost, but the need for water was interesting. TY

@TwoBitDaVinci the water vapor cooling could be transformed into a centralized heatplant, they could store the heat to later use, either as to generate new power or in a heat distribution system

In the city I live in, just the residential rooftop solar creates more than 3 times the power needs for the entire state, we also have multiple wind and solar farms that are not currently being used. Electricity is actually very easy and cheap to produce in the quantities needed for any modern city. If you combine rooftop solar and wind power systems with closed loop hydroelectric power stations, you can easily power a city for about 5% of the cost of coal, oil, gas or nuclear power stations. A closed loop hydroelectric power station can be built any size from powering a single light bulb to an entire city, but smaller units are far more cost-effective. If you only use the stored power and only use the wind and solar power systems to recharge the hydroelectric power stations, you can easily control the power production to closely match power consumption. Because closed loop hydroelectric power stations can be built underground or incorporated into building design they can be built closer to where the power is needed eliminating most substations and transformers saving even more money and making the power grid more reliable. Coal, oil and gas are obsolete commodities that can easily be replaced with cheaper environmentally friendly alternatives. We already have the technology and resources to be completely fossil fuel free in under 2 years, but we lack the intelligence and willingness to just do it.

i had a fun time running the grid in the South-West, (Arizona-New Mexico-El Paso, Texas and El Centro, Calif) I wrote my own program on a HP45 to economically dispatch the plants and used a very old computer to do the work (ProDac 580) which was broken at the time, but fixed sometime later. We Saved millions on fuel and maintenance costs. I Bought and sold power all over the Western Interconnection. The grid is better now, it is being modified to support Solar and Wind. Tesla Mega Packs would be a better solution.

@DFPercush

6 ай бұрын

We don't need to use lithium for grid storage. Save that for things that need to be light and small. There are lots of other stationary storage technologies to choose from. Sodium ion, zinc bromide, iron air... But we do need something, and batteries are a pretty efficient way to store electricity.

You also use treated effluent for cooling. Our local CC-gas power plant uses treated effluent for cooling.

Good video. This is the type of deep root cause analysis that needs to be done for the full life cycle of every product and service before someone just declares that wind is best, solar is best, evs must be mandated, etc. Our wonderful market economy will eventually take care of all this because it will be in everyone's best interest to be efficient. The pricing mechanism of everything will ensure that. Note how the govt subsidies are shown in this video that at times it makes financial sense for a wind operator to operate at a loss, just to get the subsidy. Makes no sense and that's why ling term subsidies are harmful

i do love that all that footage is of asic mining hardware ;) like not literally all of it, but a bunch of the b-roll is miners

As a common guest to the Island/State of Malta, they have a Gas powered plant with a huge supply ship, to be able to produce "fresh water", from Salt water, to supply the islands needs for water. Maybe windmills would help? As a Dane - we are among the largest and - earliest producers of Modern, Large Windmills for Electricity Production - We of course know that windmills can't be used at all times, but will have to be started and stopped according to present needs - as any other "Electricity Producing Plant"!!! But we have a High Power Electricity Grid in Denmark and the surrounding countries, which are - connected, so that present overproduction may be sent to other places. In Norway and Sweden they produce a lot of Electricity from water powered Plants and in Germany, they - also have Nuclear Plants. We in Denmark have much Wind power to Sea and on our West Coast, so we are able to Balance the Production to be levelled in all Countries! Finn. Denmark

This is where we need proper energy storage solutions, (Kinetic flywheel storage on a massive scale, much more than some existing systems which are used to smooth out the supply?) instead of dissipating the excess energy which seems ludicrous to me, but if the excess heat could be used to some advantage - But I don't know how - I am just a spectator, not an expert by any means! Thank you, Ricky for another great video.

@kaneworsnop1007

7 ай бұрын

Communal heating is a prime candidate, there's already a lot of talk of bringing it back and using excess heat from power stations and industries such as steel.

Wow, this is interesting! I hope Google (including this site right here) and facebook jump onboard to help make this the new standard! But then 1. locality might be a problem, and 2. pulling off the transition(s) would be very complicated, if I understand right.

Love this idea. Using distributed compute to soak up excess energy. I think compute should be used for heating as well. Compute is ~100% efficient at turning energy into heat. That's exactly what resistive heaters do. All electric heaters should be compute to use the 'free' energy currently being 'wasted'.

11:00 - What a nice spot for the air soaring.

That's just beautiful.

Thanks!

Dude, I really liked your “Two Bit DaVinci” logo using the Pi symbol. Really unique.

As someone whos actually wokring with wind turbines, when its not spinning its usually stopped or a problem has occured. They dont "shut them down" because the grid isnt demanding power atleast not in Europe or if the price is too low to sell.

Very interesting information on how to use available energy production capacity, but how does this address necessary baseload demand?

I am glad there is a niche market of data centers that can at a moments notice go offline but most data centers would not like this arrangement. It would be better to use the excess energy for energy storage to be sold back later, or better yet improve the grid so that the excess energy can be sold to other markets when not in use by the current market.

@ronaldking1054

7 ай бұрын

Or take a system that would eat the supply on site like a charging station.

@pin65371

7 ай бұрын

Yah I'm trying to understand this as well. If you are spending a bunch of money on a data center you want as much of that to be utilized at all times. Not just when the wind is blowing.

Very interesting. But off-demand wind power could be used for energy storage too. Perhaps to pump/recycle water back into a hydro dam.

Very cool, now if that excess heat could be used for heating it would be a win win .

@levenkay4468

7 ай бұрын

Set up in Fairbanks, AK?

if you keep a CPU or GPU cooler it does translate to more computing power the cooler you can keep it...., not sure if that statement was exactly what you thought it was....love the vid, good stuff

I know the ranchers that agree to have these installed on their land get a chunk of money to rent the space basically. However it doesn't get close to the cost to remove the windmill when it eventually needs repairs and is abandoned.

9:10 - We use heat from data centers for heating the water in water pools.

I'm curious about how they handle the inevitable dust in their ventilation system. Amarillo, TX was near the worst parts of the dust bowl and is still one of the windiest areas (hence the turbines).

@arigornstrider

6 ай бұрын

Air filters and regular cleaning of the equipment.