this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2025
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Renewables blow past nuclear when it comes to cheap datacenter juice (www.theregister.com)
submitted 3 days ago by kalkulat@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For a modern scaled up data center, there's no real benefit to nuclear miniturization. That's the sort of technology best employed on shipping frigates and space stations - places where portability is a priority.

You don't need to pick up a date center the size of 70 football fields and send it anywhere.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Shipping frigates? Sure, lets give the Houthis and Somali pirates the capability of building dirty bombs.

And if solar power is cheaper on Earth, think of how much more cheaper it is in space where there isn't an atmosphere getting in the way.

Sometimes a tech is really cool, but there just isn't any viable use case for it.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sure, lets give the Houthis and Somali pirates the capability of building dirty bombs.

What are you talking about?

And if solar power is cheaper on Earth, think of how much more cheaper it is in space

There's an R^2 drop off as you travel away from the sun.

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago

It's very easy mix in radioactive materials with conventional explosives to make a dirty bomb... provided you have access to radioactive materials. You put nuclear reactors in cargo ships, anyone that can board and commandeer a cargo ship now has access to radioactive materials and therefore the capability building a dirty bomb.

There’s an R^2 drop off as you travel away from the sun. Sure if you're going to Saturn, solar isn't going to work well. We already use nuclear batteries for those missions, but it's some butt clenching with that because if the rocket goes boom instead of getting to space (which happens sometimes) it would spread some radioactive material around.

But it's going to be a long time before we're building space stations beyond Mars (it'll be a long time before we go beyond the Moon the way things are going) so it's going to be solar power for most space things other than the odd probe we send to the outer planets.