Data centers turn to commercial aircraft jet engines bolted onto trailers as AI power crunch bites — cast-off turbines generate up to 48 MW of electricity apiece

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers-turn-to-ex-airliner-engines-as-ai-power-crunch-bites

by thinkcontext

14 comments

  1. An extremely inefficient way to generate electricity. They’re not even using co-generation, using the heat of the exhaust to run a steam turbine generator.

  2. I thought these were all going to run on totally available super green small modular reactors?

  3. These are not “commercial aircraft jet engines” they are derivates of “commercial aircraft jet engines” also known as aeroderivative gas turbines. You have a much larger turbine section in aeroderivatives to convert that thrust into shaft power. Aeroderivatives have been in use for power generation since the 1960’s and are whats used in most peaker plants. They run in the low to mid 40% efficiency.

  4. And I believe the emissions rules for these engines is a lot more lax than for internal combustion piston engines. So not only do they produce a lot of power they also produce a lot of pollution.,

  5. I’m generally not into the whole AI controversy, but Cal Newport brought the crap OpenAI is doing to generate revenue to my attention, and I am now officially disturbed. 😄 A few years ago, I thought AI enabled advancements in various scientific pursuits would outweigh stupid AI-generated cat videos. Now, I’m not so sure. And I think what is happening is one more reason to keep kids away from screens! [https://www.thedeeplife.com/podcasts/episodes/ep-375-did-openai-just-kill-social-media/](https://www.thedeeplife.com/podcasts/episodes/ep-375-did-openai-just-kill-social-media/)

  6. Quick, let’s think of really dirty ways to power data centers…

  7. Why do these data centers not invest in building proper power plants that can power themselves, and sell useful power back to the grid as well?

  8. This is getting utterly ridiculous now. I mean seriously. What the fuck are we even doing anymore?

  10. Dang if only we had invested in alternative energy…oh well guess we have to ghetto rig old jet engines 🤷‍♂️

    I’m tired boss. 

  11. Remember the lesson we learned from crypto? You know, 4 years ago? No? Me neither.

  13. What happens when there’s a 4 year wait for new gas turbines…

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