Starmer wants high-tech investment in the UK that will demand massive new electricity supply and water supplies we simply have not got, and all for not many new jobs. Why doesn't he grow UK small business instead?
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Amazon wants to build data centres in the UK, and it's not alone. There will be plenty of other companies who want to do these things to handle the consequences of AI. But can we afford to have them in this country?
I ask for two really big reasons. The first is that, although not yet widely understood, AI is going to absorb lots of energy. That artificial intelligence does not come for free. The cost is in terms of significant new amounts of electricity that must be generated to meet the demand for all these data centres that will process this supposed intelligence, which would otherwise be supplied by us human beings. So, that's the first cost that Amazon is going to impose upon this country.
And what we already know in the UK is that our National Grid is creaking. What I mean by saying it is creaking, is that it cannot meet current demand both for new inputs into the system, which can't be connected, apparently, for years to come because of the inefficiencies within the National Grid, which means they cannot connect up new power sources, or for outputs from the system, meaning that companies who want to be supplied with electricity are sitting waiting for the supply to be installed, which is also, by the way, a constraint on new house building.
So, Keir Starmer's massive plan to bring data centres amongst many other high-tech industries that he wants to be located in the UK is actually going to make our national infrastructure worse.
But, there's another way in which Amazon will impose an enormous demand on the UK by building these data centres. And that is by asking for more water. Because when you generate more heat, which these data centres will do, you require more water to cool the systems down. This is not marginal heat we're talking about here, it's the sort of heat that used to be created by power stations, and there was a very good reason why they, when they were located inland, were next to rivers, and that was because they needed river water to cool them.
Now, are we willing to put up with the heat pollution to our water supplies that Amazon will create as a consequence? We already know there are major problems with water supply in the UK. For example, there was a recent report saying that businesses in Suffolk cannot get new water supplies installed to meet their needs to grow their businesses because the local water company says that it cannot find the water resources in question, partly because, by law, those water resources are going to have to be diverted to Sizewell C Power Station, which, although it sits next to the sea, will not be able to use salt water to cool its reactors, and will instead require extra freshwater resources for that purpose, which will then be pumped into the sea and be lost for good.
This is another potential creaking part of our infrastructure. We know that water is already failing.
But these new investments that Keir Starmer is trumpeting are going to make electricity and water look much more vulnerable. And yet, who's going to make the investment to turn them around and make them fit for, well, the late 20th century, let alone the 21st century?
No one knows.
We are quite certain that the water companies do not have the resources to already supply us with water that is fit for consumption and, at the same time, manage our rivers, streams, and beaches in a way that prevents them being deeply polluted by human waste. We know already that many of our rivers are polluted by existing industries.
For example, the River Wye in the West Country is heavily polluted by the runoff from chicken farming in particular in that area. We know that other rivers and streams are not improving in quality as we would hope. In other words, we know that the demand for investment is already enormous in these sectors.
And we know that National Grid is simply not keeping up.
So why are we planning to bring new industries to this country that our infrastructure cannot support and which must actually impose constraints on existing domestic growth if we are to encourage this foreign direct investment? I genuinely don't know.
But I can say one thing with certainty. And that is that Keir Starmer does not seem to have thought this through. It would be much better to grow jobs in the UK based upon smaller, more local, more diverse businesses that have lower levels of energy demand than it would be by doing the sort of thing that he's doing - high-ticket items with massive energy demand for relatively low numbers of jobs created and with high levels of pollution risk, both from energy generation and from river pollution. We really do need a joined-up industrial policy for this country, and Labour is not delivering it.
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Google plan to use small modular nuclear reactors, similar to those found in submarines, for data centre power:
https://www.powermag.com/google-could-use-small-nuclear-reactors-to-power-data-centers/
What could possibly go wrong?
Meanwhile, in the real world, scientists publish the 2024 State of the Climate report, which declares a Climate Emergency and calls for an immediate, rapid, and massive decrease in energy usage worldwide:
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/advance-article/doi/10.1093/biosci/biae087/7808595?login=false
But according to Starmer those scientists are “finger-wagging extremists” so we can safely ignore them…
Yes, Google have ordered SMRs. But a friend of mine who is a retired nuclear engineer tells me that SMRs will never be produced at scale for the very reason that Richard suggests – they are effectively steam engines with a voracius thirst for water. The technology is quite different, he says, from submarines, and he should know because he worked on one of the Vanguards.
And BTW, according to ChatGPT “Sizewell C, a proposed nuclear power station in Suffolk, UK, will use sea water for its cooling system. Like many coastal nuclear power plants, Sizewell C plans to utilize seawater from the nearby North Sea to cool its reactors.”
That is why legisaltion was required to ensure it could demand fresh water then?
Yes, I suspect it uses sea water for cooling but fresh water for the turbines. I’ve asked my pal, but may have a wait because he is getting married next week and is likely to be otherwise occupied.
From my pal –
All coastal power stations, of whatever type, use sea water to condense the steam in the condensers. A steam turbine is, say, 35% to 40% efficient so the excess heat just goes to warm the sea. Thus, in a very loose sense, sea water will cool the reactors albeit not directly. There is no way that sea water will get anywhere near the reactors. For Sizewell C and Hinkley C, both pressurised water reactor systems, the water actually passing through the reactor has very carefully controlled chemistry. This water passes through the primary side of a ’Steam Generator’. The secondary side of this, where water is turned to steam, is also carefully controlled. The ‘used’ steam then goes through a condenser which is where the sea water is used.
So, fresh water is required and it is not available
I acepot I may have mis-stated the use
Not wishing to labour the point, and adding that I am in no way trying to compromise you, my pal says that the fresh water used in the reactor is an entirely closed system. It can be manufactured off site (as it is for subs) and only needs topping up now and again. Where, however, large quantities of fresh water might be needed is if SMRs are ever deployed (he insists they won’t be) they would be sited close to population or industrial centres and would need a local supply of fresh water for cooling the condensers.
Then why was law required to supply it when the massive demand for fresh water by the site could not be met (and probably still cannot be, whatever the law saying it must be supplied says). This is a very live Sizewell issue, I am reliably informed.
https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/EN010012/EN010012-007263-AS%20Northumbrian%20Water%20Limited.pdf
Thank you
I thought I was right
2 million litres a day
It’s all in here if you care to read it. The biggest demand is projected to be during the construction stage but there will be a desalination plant on site. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out that the pressurised water for the actual reactor is manufactured at Flammenville or someplace.
https://infrastructure.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/wp-content/ipc/uploads/projects/EN010012/EN010012-007011-Sizewell%20C%20Project%20-%208.4%20Planning%20Statement%20-%20Appendix%208.4K%20-%20Site%20Water%20Supply%20Strategy%20-%20Revision%202.0.pdf
The Sizewell C campaign seems to think otherwise on this issue is all I can say.
John/Richard. I did post that document as part of my series of comments. It’s 2.8 million litres per day, twice as much during the construction phase. There is an on site desalination plant proposed, but I do accept that the water demand is challenging. In fact I also said that in my original post, which is the reason my retired nuclear engineer friend believes that SMRs will never happen.
It was a few years ago now but OFGEM(?) was saying that planning to extend railway electrification was all well and good BUT the UK didnt have the generating capacity for it.
Similarly if these Data Centres have waste heat why are they not being built adjacent to either housing or industry such as glasshouses that can utilise the waste heat instead of dumping it.
We’re seeing kickback in the Netherlands since successive far/extreme right governments left the decision to local authorities.
These datacentres can’t be built near urban areas since they’d swallow up electricity and water needed for households, so they’re being planned outside of the Netherland’s populous heart.
Up in Groningen, the local authority coalition banned these data centres, but the local mayor is pressing on with building them.
How that’s possible is down to the complicated local authority ststem where there are direc elections but mayors (who are appointed) have considerable executive powers.
Thank you, John.
I work for the bank that brings together Ajax and Feyenoord’s cities of origin… My employer is a big funder of such centres and sees it as part of its, don’t laugh, support for greening the economy. We have just funded centres to be built near London and Milan.
This country is run by and supported by some of the most delusional people on the planet.
The EU is about ready to stop their agricultural funding since they’ve done nothing to reign in the nitrogen levels killing the ecosystem because of intensive farming.
Totally agree. There is an obsession amongst politicians and policy makers with large projects – they are visible, sound impressive and easy to portray that something tangible is happening – but often they are either vanity projects and/or unnecessary. HS2 is a good example as with nuclear power stations and new roads. We need a totally different approach to industrial policy!
According to Ian Dunt’s book How Westminster Works and Why It Doesn’t (useful preview here https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/How_Westminster_Works_and_Why_It_Doesn_t/Mo9hEAAAQBAJ) politicians aren’t chosen because they have any experience or expertise in any particular subject, management in particular, but because they behave well from a political POV. Similarly, Spads, and depressingly civil servants these days, if they want to see their pay increase and climb the ladder, have to endlessly switch from position to position seeking to improve their pay rather than expertise. No-one in or associated with govt then, it seems to be fair to say, has a scooby about running anything. I gather, thinking about it, this has come about over time by design so as to increase the demand for outside consultants, and an industry has sprung up to meet that demand. Consultants may well know their stuff but inevitably their advice will reflect the fact their masters are industry, not the electorate. Is it this that’s led to the present corporate capture of the utilities? I could see that as being a credible suggestion. If govt decided to nationalise the utilities, then, it would need to employ all the consultants itself, something it shows little inclination to do. At present then, we have clueless politicians who are themselves advised by clueless civil servants, running, or rather failing comprehensively to run, the country. No surprise it’s collapsing then. There seems no sign this is likely to be changing in the foreseeable future. So yup, we’re a failed state which just doesn’t know it yet.
I recognise this
One needs to consider Nat Grid and the DNOs (distribution network operators) as a continum – since actions by one affect the other. The DNOs have a very very old fashioned approach to network design and operation – & still work on a worst-case basis. This is also a function of how they are remunerated – on their asset base – so what passes for “planning ” tends to be focused on asset-base build out (more assets, more revenues). This has reached a point where, for some of the developments I’m involved with, we don’t tell the DNOs – what we are doing – why bother when you already know what the answer is? – “no” (& the reasons given are always – synthetic).
Ofgem? at the risk of repeating myself: a collection of lawyers, accountants, and economists – which Nat Grid and the DNOs run rings round (due to information asymmetry). The core problem with power networks, at any voltage layer, is that power flow control is either not possible or very limited. There are solutions, but corporate interests coupled to an antique not-fit-for-the-now-or-the-future “market” structures (how to price electricity @ the cost of production) gets in the way. The current “government” (I use the word losely to encompass the current know-nothing rabble) are functionally incapable of anything & are at the mercy of ………now go back to the begining of this comment.
Mr Parr,
Would you care to outline a National Grid and NDO structure proposal that would work? In Scotland consumers (often more remote, high renewable energy producing areas) feel they are receiving a very, very bad deal from the current basis of UK Grid charges. At the same time the Government is peddling GB Energy as the answer (an investment vehicle totally detached from overall market or network responsibilities). It is a very naughty use of the deliberately misleading and grandiose catch-all title ‘GB Energy’. I am reminded of Britoil. Formed in 1975 as a publicly owned corporation to ensure adequate oil supply in Britain after the oil crisis in 1973 and the discovery of North Sea Oil (a more direct responsibility for supply than GB Energy),it was based in Glasgow, with a glossy corporate HQ. The office is still there, but no oil company. Britoil disappeared into the portfolio of BP in 1988.
GB Energy? There will be some glossy headline investments. It will be lucky to survive five years before it is devoured by a major oil or energy corporation, or becomes a hedge fund play. We have been here before. Britain is so burned out it keeps playing the same old tunes. Why anyone keeps falling for all this window dressing (when they are selling snake-oil) is quite beyond me. I would like to add that it beggars belief, but it all so depressingly predictable………
Happy to oblige. Here it is.
1. Strip out Nat Grid operations, control and data – government owned (in theory has happened).
1a.. Communication Nat Grid (gov) and Nat grid (assets/private) only through specific and controlled channels.
1b. Nat Grid (gov) only entity allowed to make investment decisions. These to be funded by gov and placed in a Nat grid (assets/gov) portfoilio.
1c. Embarrassingly good pensions for Nat Grid (gov) personal – with loss of job/pension if circumventing 1a or conniving wrt 1b.
2. Rinse and repeat with DNOs (1a & 1b & 1c) – not even on the horizon – although the DNO like to “let’s play being a systems operator today” pathetic.
3. Citizens local (3 – 4 kms?) to renewables (wind, PV, hydro) have the right to buy elec from same @ levelised costs of those renewables – with no network charges of any sort. This would start to de-grade the non-electricity market – which, needs to be destroyed.
4. Local gov able to develop renewable projects at any scale – obligation of gov to fund. If nothing else this would give the poor buggers in local gov a revenue stream.
5. All renewable developments obliged to offer 20% of the equity to people within a 4 km radius of the renewable – this is part of the planning process – with local gov funded to ensure this happens.
6. People affected by interconnectors (off-shore wind to shore, or on-shore) are helped to develop their own, fully-owned renewable projects with government support and funding to realise them.
I could go on at length. None of this will happen. Nat Grid Systems Operator is behaving in the same way as if it was a private company. The DNOs live in greed & self interest la-la-land. The oher problem is the thick layer of “con-sultants” in places such as GB Energy. They know nothing but suck resources. I come across them all the time, parasites.
UK is a failed state – it just does not know it, yet.
With grateful thanks! Some interesting and creative ideas; but I suspect Government will be shaken, not stirred by such innovative unorthodoxy.
They, any Westminster Government, will simply carry on what they have been doing for centuries, rob Scotland. We have plenty of fresh water, and renewable electricity. Ahint, Peterhead to Drax.
None of the politicians in the two main parties seem to have a clue about where climate change, and our access to resources, is actually heading. There’s no concept of a smooth transition to the longer term (100+ years) future for our society.
So we’ll crash and burn.
Rich – your sentence was complete after the words “….have a clue”
I have had short break holidays in the Forest of Dean for many years. There is a vantage point on Symonds Yat where you look directly down on the Wye. I used to watch the fish swimming through the vegetation below, as well as the peregrine falcon nests in the cliff nearby. The falcons are still there, the river is now impenetrable brown sludge. A disaster, with many more to come it seems.
And this is an area where coal mining was once rife
How about the opposite view?
That he has thought this through and he is just doing as his advisors tell him to do? Because that is all he does? He has been bought.
Roll with it boy! Give in to it!
He is here to enable corporate interests to take advantage of the mess and for that he will be well looked after – the next Tony Blair – you discussed this with Steve K and Ty on than fantastic web discussion – how politicians get so awe struck by power.
How about Starmer has no idea. He spouted the speech that was cobbled together by a SpAd. He takes it as given that he must not frighten the market. And yes he believes that the fairies at the bottom of the garden in number 10 will magic up the supply of electricity from somewhere.
The fairies at don’t live at the bottom of the garden in No 10 any longer. They moved into the building on 4 July, along with their imaginary policies.
Hi Richard,
This is an excellent call out, just as we continue to talk about growth without recognising the breaching our planetary boundaries.
I heard on the radio a data centre owner saying that “all their energy would be certified renewable”. This is just not believable as REGO certificates are a mess.
Energy suppliers ‘wise’ to abandon use of REGO certificates over ‘greenwashing’ concerns
https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/energy-suppliers-wise-abandon-rego-certificates-greenwashing-concerns
Another objection is relatively low job creation. These behemoths trade in data, not tangible products, so once they’re operational they don’t need that many people to keep them running.
Oxford’s Martin School presented a lecture by a global expert on the global water situation this week. See October 21 lecture at https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/events/past. The video of the hour long session ought to be included in the link soon.
Prof Whittington’s three phases development are held up by ‘political economics’ worldwide, i.e., the availabiloty of national financing to undertake medium to long term projects to prevent Day Zero events.
This seems to me to be yet another consequence of failing to implement fiat money MMT.
If if the government don’t recognise these arguments, then lets hope the new Water Commission identifies the issues in these time of climate-collapse.
https://media.service.gov.wales/news/governments-launch-independent-water-commission-in-largest-review-of-the-sector-since-privatisation