Big news for Portsmouth

[Ohiosam]

I think someone here has hinted about something going on. Just can’t remember who

Two federal agencies say a recently proposed $33.3 billion, 9.2-gigawatt (GW) natural gas plant in southern Ohio will eventually power a data center.

The facilities, including the behemoth proposed 10-GW data center, will be constructed on revitalized U.S. Department of Energy land in Piketon, where the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant was.

There, the former enrichment buildings are in various stages of demolition. As of March, some are nothing but rubble.

SB Energy, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based SoftBank Group, will lead the project. It will also invest $4.2 billion in new transmission lines across southern Ohio with American Electric Power (AEP) Ohio. SB Energy was attracted to Piketon because of the high density of the existing transmission infrastructure, among other reasons, an official said Friday.

To start, SB Energy said it will invest $10 billion in an 800-megawatt data center, creating 4,000 construction jobs and 300 to 400 operational jobs. That could grow to 35,000 construction workers and 2,500 operational staff, the official said.

Construction is scheduled to start this year, with the data center coming online in two years, said Tim Walsh, U.S. Department of Energy assistant secretary.

“It’s just going to be a generational change for this area, and we’ve struggled economically, there’s no doubt about that,” Sen. Shane Wilkin (R-Hillsboro) said Friday. But Piketon, he said, “frankly, won the Cold War by the work they did here at this site.”

Wilkin isn’t worried about where Ohio will get workers. “I would much rather need the workers and have the jobs than not have the jobs,” he said.

The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, near Piketon, started enriching uranium in 1954 for the U.S. nuclear arms program, and later for commercial nuclear reactors. It shut down uranium enrichment in 2001.

Current workers at the Portsmouth Site, many clad in a neon vest, filled the white tent Friday for the official announcement, which was also attended by government officials and SoftBank executives.

“I haven’t heard anything negative from the community,” Walsh said in an interview. “Over the last 20 years, they’ve lost so many jobs, and now they see this as a way to really grow the future for themselves and their families.”

The investment was born from a $550 billion trade deal between the U.S. and Japan, according to a U.S. Department of Commerce news release.

Feds announce huge natural gas plant, data center project in southern Ohio

The facilities, including the behemoth 10 gigawatt data center, will be constructed on revitalized U.S. Department of Energy land in Piketon.

www.statenews.org

 

[giles]

Might be time for me to go back to working transmission lines.

 

[Buckmaster]

I supported the Monaca PA plant. At the time the next plant was scheduled for Shadyside. It got canceled and must be replaced by this facility.

 

[bowhunter1023]

I supported the Monaca PA plant. At the time the next plant was scheduled for Shadyside. It got canceled and must be replaced by this facility.

Two totally different endgames, so it's not really a replacement, although it will have that effect for Bechtel, who was supposed to build the plant in Shadyside. What is a replacement, is using natural gas for power gen as opposed to taking it to a cracker plant. The push for nat gas power gen is already fierce, and it will grow exponentially. The need to make plastic pellets is now less than the need to power AI.

 

[Mike]

The Meta data center between Bowling Green and Perrysburg is going to have nat gas power generation. It is massive.

 

[hickslawns]

I wanna go live in the woods. You can keep the AI.

 

[GoetzTalon]

Crazy that a place is so big that it needs its own power plant to run it. Our electric will still go through the roof along with the water.

 

[Buckmaster]

Our electric will still go through the roof along with the water.

Water is a limited resource. Someday more valuable than Gold.

 

[5Cent]

Water is a limited resource. Someday more valuable than Gold.

Already is, we just don't see the value and how fast we are destroying it.

I'm curious to see how fast Sandusky Bay warms up as the first of 4 or 5 centers comes online in Sandusky here soon. It's huge, it's ugly and it's just the beginning. Will they blame the larger algea spawns on farmers again next year, or the hot water in the name of progress? I think lots of ppl are about to complain about the noise too...

@jagermeister, yours or sandusky office pulling temp trends for baseline and comparison post go-live? Were there studies that included ODNR before approved?

 

[Ohiosam]

Two totally different endgames, so it's not really a replacement, although it will have that effect for Bechtel, who was supposed to build the plant in Shadyside. What is a replacement, is using natural gas for power gen as opposed to taking it to a cracker plant. The push for nat gas power gen is already fierce, and it will grow exponentially. The need to make plastic pellets is now less than the need to power AI.

I was told long ago that the cracker plants need "wet gas". That's gas with ethane, butane, and propane in it. The ethane can be cracked in to ethylene . While wet gas can be used like dry gas in power generation it's a waste of the other valuable liquids if they aren't separated first. Do I understand it correctly?

 

[Ohiosam]

Already is, we just don't see the value and how fast we are destroying it.

I'm curious to see how fast Sandusky Bay warms up as the first of 4 or 5 centers comes online in Sandusky here soon. It's huge, it's ugly and it's just the beginning. Will they blame the larger algea spawns on farmers again next year, or the hot water in the name of progress? I think lots of ppl are about to complain about the noise too...

@jagermeister, yours or sandusky office pulling temp trends for baseline and comparison post go-live? Were there studies that included ODNR before approved?

I've never really understood the algae bloom issue in western Erie. All the great lakes have lots of ag run off, from both US and Canada. Heck almost every drop in Michigan flows to the Great Lakes. But most all of the blame falls on Ohio, especially NW Ohio. I'm in the Ohio river watershed but I've had to go through more training and record keeping because of Erie algae.

 

[Jackalope]

I think their post construction continued staffing estimates are grossly overestimated. I've spent quite a bit of time inside datacenters including the Quest facility in Columbus. A few security guards and a couple of people to swap out hot swappable system parts is all I ever saw working the entire facility. Outside of low pay physical security and parts swappers, the remainder such as Network techs, sys admins, etc can all be done remotely from wherever their AI HQ is such as Japan. 300-400 operational staff is a huge stretch, 2,500 is laughably absurd. Regardless of the jobs the datacenters create they will never create more than they destroy.

The good and bad news is that while AI is very good at operationalizing very structured things like writing a computer program in Python, or designing an electrical substation, things that have set rules and published methods, it is not good at innovating and inventing. nd for good reason. What's yet to be seen is what economic motivator will people have to innovate, if AI will pick it up in a matter of minutes and make the need for programmers, designers, and engineers, obsolete. For example programming languages. The internet has come a long way in just 20 years thank to innovation in coding. With that came scores of people who learned to code and made good-paying careers from it. They contributed to the innovation brick by brick and progress is steadily made. From an existing coding language standpoint they're largely obsolete now as AI can pound out in 4 minutes what took a code developer a month to do. So what incentive do people have to innovate and how much will innovation be stifled? Time will tell. I think the next thing we'll see is a huge battle over intellectual property rights and royalties. If I use AI to write a program, who owns the rights to it, me, or the AI company who technically created it. The same for music, movies, books, and yes even corporate IP. Don't think for a minute these AI companies aren't dumping billions into this tech without a revenue model in mind beyond selling vague AI cycle credits to use it. Oh and wait until they start including paid advertisements and modifying AI output based on whose paying them. At that point where's the credibility in AI's outputs? There's lots to be done regarding laws and regulations and sadly these AI companies will exploit everything and everyone for everything they can while funneling billions to politicians to drag their feet on creating them.

 

[bowhunter1023]

I was told long ago that the cracker plants need "wet gas". That's gas with ethane, butane, and propane in it. The ethane can be cracked in to ethylene . While wet gas can be used like dry gas in power generation it's a waste of the other valuable liquids if they aren't separated first. Do I understand it correctly?


View attachment 219226

This is correct. What it means for the industry is a shift from moving wet gas to market, to dry gas. If the trend for natural gas fired power plants grows, permits and rigs will shift on the landscape to capture the opportunity, which also means more pipelining activity.

 

[Buckmaster]

Current technology focus is on the Utica and Marcellus formations. What gas below that immensely exceeds current production. Technology will need to advance before they can tap into those deeper formations so my buddy gas attorney explains.

 

[bowhunter1023]

Current technology focus is on the Utica and Marcellus formations. What gas below that immensely exceeds current production. Technology will need to advance before they can tap into those deeper formations so my buddy gas attorney explains.

He's correct. There's still 50% or better of the reserves down there, but similar to the change from straight hole to horizontal drilling, a similar technological revolution is needed to move to the next viable formations.

 

[Ohiosam]

I think their post construction continued staffing estimates are grossly overestimated. I've spent quite a bit of time inside datacenters including the Quest facility in Columbus. A few security guards and a couple of people to swap out hot swappable system parts is all I ever saw working the entire facility. Outside of low pay physical security and parts swappers, the remainder such as Network techs, sys admins, etc can all be done remotely from wherever their AI HQ is such as Japan. 300-400 operational staff is a huge stretch, 2,500 is laughably absurd. Regardless of the jobs the datacenters create they will never create more than they destroy.

The good and bad news is that while AI is very good at operationalizing very structured things like writing a computer program in Python, or designing an electrical substation, things that have set rules and published methods, it is not good at innovating and inventing. nd for good reason. What's yet to be seen is what economic motivator will people have to innovate, if AI will pick it up in a matter of minutes and make the need for programmers, designers, and engineers, obsolete. For example programming languages. The internet has come a long way in just 20 years thank to innovation in coding. With that came scores of people who learned to code and made good-paying careers from it. They contributed to the innovation brick by brick and progress is steadily made. From an existing coding language standpoint they're largely obsolete now as AI can pound out in 4 minutes what took a code developer a month to do. So what incentive do people have to innovate and how much will innovation be stifled? Time will tell. I think the next thing we'll see is a huge battle over intellectual property rights and royalties. If I use AI to write a program, who owns the rights to it, me, or the AI company who technically created it. The same for music, movies, books, and yes even corporate IP. Don't think for a minute these AI companies aren't dumping billions into this tech without a revenue model in mind beyond selling vague AI cycle credits to use it. Oh and wait until they start including paid advertisements and modifying AI output based on whose paying them. At that point where's the credibility in AI's outputs? There's lots to be done regarding laws and regulations and sadly these AI companies will exploit everything and everyone for everything they can while funneling billions to politicians to drag their feet on creating them.

Many years ago I remember when Rush started a website that required a paid subscription. That was a relatively new idea at the time, almost everything was free and without many ads. He talked about how people hadn’t quite figured out how to monetize the internet yet inspite with how big it had gotten. I’m sure tech companies learned that lesson and won’t make the same mistake twice.

 

[Jackalope]

Many years ago I remember when Rush started a website that required a paid subscription. That was a relatively new idea at the time, almost everything was free and without many ads. He talked about how people hadn’t quite figured out how to monetize the internet yet inspite with how big it had gotten. I’m sure tech companies learned that lesson and won’t make the same mistake twice.

We're going to see far more of that behavior with AI. Things like paywalls, subscriptions etc as content creators move to protect their product from being ripped off by AI. Today most of the "free" internet is created with the intent of driving traffic to the site where they're paid by advertisers per page view, and a little more if someone actually clicks it. The focus has been on providing quality information in hopes of getting ranked high on a search engine which will deliver traffic. Now however AI scrapes the site and to circumvent intellectual property rights provided the user a summary as the top search result. The creator never saw a single visit or penny for their efforts as advertisers don't pay for bot views, in short AI stole the traffic. Currently, there isn't a legal way to stop that without taking the content private, requiring a paid or free account etc. However, that is pretty much a death sentence for the site because Google will rank them lower and their traffic will plummet, plus many users simply will not do it.

 

[bowhunter1023]

I went from using Google to search things 100% of the time, to 10% of the time in a year's time. I have ChatGPT and Claude open on my desktop all day, everyday. Things like troubleshooting maintenance issues are far easier, and far more productive using AI than with Google. It's just one of many reasons why I'm bullish on AI long-time as a beneficiary.

 

[Buckmaster]

I went from using Google to search things 100% of the time, to 10% of the time in a year's time. I have ChatGPT and Claude open on my desktop all day, everyday. Things like troubleshooting maintenance issues are far easier, and far more productive using AI than with Google. It's just one of many reasons why I'm bullish on AI long-time as a beneficiary.

I concur.

 

[Hedgelj]

I have chats for:
my internet/wifi set up and security cameras
my mini skid
boiler in the old house
cooking stuff
random
coaching
and others i can't think of

there are things that are annoying but it's also nice to have it give me ideas on how to troubleshoot things in not familiar with or not staying up to date on all the newest stuff