Nuclear on the roof you say? Just a matter of time. There are a bunch of startups in this area, shipping container sized operation intentions. Just saw a news report on this place that just started their HQ here in South Florida. Interesting stuff. https://www.ampera-x.com/ On Fri, Apr 24, 2026 at 12:32 PM Tom Beecher via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
The past year has seen a lot of attention paid to small and large nuclear. We'll probably see a lot more of it.
Random articles on the clickbait tech press circuits are a far cry from actual in production use. (See also, IPv8 lulz from last week. )
Very few SMRs are actually running anywhere. Canada approved a 4 unit SMR project at Darlington in 2020, they didn't start construction on the 1st until until May 2025, and don't expect that to be online until 2030. 10 years for 300 MW thermal isn't a great value proposition when you can spend the same 10 years to get a 1GW thermal reactor up.
Large nuclear will unlikely be a solution either. You don't just blow the dust bunnies off a decommissioned reactor to fire it up again, and even Big Tech isn't likely to be able to grease the NRC into easing most regulations. Even the dumbest of politicians is smart enough to know that a TMI in your district is REALLY REALLY BAD.
On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 10:24 PM Mike Hammett via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
Nor suitable for 24/7 loads.
The past year has seen a lot of attention paid to small and large nuclear. We'll probably see a lot more of it.
----- Mike Hammett Intelligent Computing Solutions
Midwest Internet Exchange
The Brothers WISP
----- Original Message ----- From: "sronan--- via NANOG" <nanog@lists.nanog.org> To: "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <ops.lists@gmail.com> Cc: nanog@lists.nanog.org, "Shane Ronan" <shane@ronan-online.com>, sronan@ronan-online.com Sent: Thursday, April 23, 2026 9:22:24 PM Subject: Re: Digital Realty- Non Renewal
Neither solar or wind is particularly cost effective, even at scale.
Shane
On Apr 23, 2026, at 10:00 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian < ops.lists@gmail.com> wrote:
And now thanks to the Iran war, I suspect they’ll all hurriedly transition to wind or solar or anything other than natural gas.
From: Shane Ronan via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Date: Friday, 24 April 2026 at 6:51 AM To: North American Network Operators Group <nanog@lists.nanog.org> Cc: Shane Ronan <shane@ronan-online.com> Subject: Re: Digital Realty- Non Renewal
We've long surpassed the power available from the commercial power grid. MANY large scale data centers are using cogeneration with natural gas turbines. I don't however think they would be approved for that in the middle of downtown Chicago.
shane
On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 6:54 PM Matthew Petach via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 3:36 PM Christopher Morrow via NANOG < nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
On Thu, Apr 23, 2026 at 5:32 PM Mike Hammett via NANOG <nanog@lists.nanog.org> wrote:
but Cermak is a big building. They can't use up *THAT* much of it. Also, diversifying to tier 2 markets would probably help a lot not have so many eggs in one basket.
how much power, exactly, is landing in Cermak? do you think you could use all of that up with your set of 120kw NVidia racks?
What, nobody is putting shipping-container-sized micro nuclear reactors on the rooftops of the buildings to augment power capacity?
Come on, people, start thinking outside the box a little. ;)
Matt
(yes, yes, permitting, upgrading electrical wiring to handle 10MW coming in from a shipping container on the roof, not as trivial as it sounds...but still, I think we're coming up on the tail end of counting entirely on the power grid to deliver power to high-density compute facilities) _______________________________________________ NANOG mailing list
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