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Rival Killer [2996]
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All-Time Great [92118]
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Build lots of SMRs already.***
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Nov 17, 2025, 12:34 PM
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TigerNet HOFer [125865]
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why not let Trump supporters eat cake, they voted for this
Nov 17, 2025, 6:54 PM
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Clemson Icon [24725]
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My understanding is Natural gas is a good fuel for peak generation***
Nov 17, 2025, 12:40 PM
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Rival Killer [2996]
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Re: My understanding is Natural gas is a good fuel for peak generation***
Nov 17, 2025, 2:44 PM
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You are correct natural gas is pretty good as peakers.
It’s pretty expensive, but even at a high cost it’s the best and cheapest way to meet the erratic needs of peak power.
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CU Medallion [19039]
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Those AI farms arent going to run themselves.***
Nov 17, 2025, 12:45 PM
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Paw Warrior [4870]
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Re: Those AI farms arent going to run themselves.***
Nov 17, 2025, 1:25 PM
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Some already are…but one way to solve some of the generation issue would be for the AI farms to use their own gas turbines to make their own electricity. Maybe it should just be a requirement above a certain demand.
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Rival Killer [2996]
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Re: Those AI farms arent going to run themselves.***
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Nov 17, 2025, 2:56 PM
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TigerBTM with the post of the day. Does BTM in your handle stand for behind the meter?
You are going down the right path.
While utilities typically don’t want their customers generating their own power (BTM) Some utilities are starting to tell the data centers …… we will provide a base load amount without a huge amount of variation and volume, but you, the data center, need to provide the peaking power and the erratic volumes.
All data centers are different, but some of them ramp up or down by 100 MW in a millisecond. In this case, the utility companies possibly going to tell the data center, go ahead and power that on your own.
Maybe the keowee Indian chief can report back and let us know how many data centers buy coal from trump and his buddies 😂
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Rival Killer [2996]
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Re: Those AI farms arent going to run themselves.***
Nov 17, 2025, 2:46 PM
[ in reply to Those AI farms arent going to run themselves.*** ] |
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Hey tenderfoot, your observational skills are impressive, you are correct AI Data centers will not run themselves.
But ain’t nobody gonna run them on coal. Not even the data centers that boy wonder Trump Junior is cooking up, those will not run on coal.
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Ultimate Tiger [35782]
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Revamping and delaying end of life of coal plants is the right move IMO....
Nov 17, 2025, 4:50 PM
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first, I don't agree with the statement that coal is not used for baseload generation any longer. That's just not true.
We have a fast approaching issue of having enough supply for anticipated load growth, driven in part by data centers. Data center loads are unique in that they are close to constant and highly concentrated.
Spinning up recently decommissioned coal plants and delaying decommissioning of existing coal plants is the right thing to be doing in the short and medium term.
And sure older plants have more outages than newer ones...but they also run at night 
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Rival Killer [2996]
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Re: Revamping and delaying end of life of coal plants is the right move IMO....
Nov 17, 2025, 6:14 PM
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Coal is not used for baseload generation nearly as much like it was in the past. That's just not happening.
Very few Data center loads are close to constant. That's just not happening.
Training loads may have been constant in the past, but that is changing quickly. Not gonna happen with inference loads yesterday or tomorrow.
Sure there are still some coal plants running baseload. And we should keep them running baseload for now, probably for a few more years.
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Ultimate Tiger [35782]
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I believe you're confusing peaker plants and seasonal plants...
Nov 17, 2025, 7:05 PM
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I'm not aware of any/many coal plants being used as daily peaker plants. Unless they're been retrofitted for that purpose, most coal plants can't do that due to the nature of the stream generation process.
However, a good number of coal plants are being used seasonally and/or in reaction to natural gas price spikes. But that days/weeks/months and not on for only certain periods of the day.
Can you give me an example of a coal plant being used for daily peaking?
As for data center loads, the national average is a load factor of ~85%. That's about as constant as a large load gets. I sat on a panel at the NEMA annual meeting 2 weeks ago with the President of the Data Center Consortium (DCC) and other heads of manufacturing companies along with a VP from NextEra and Dominion and this very subject was the point of much of the discussion. There a lot of work being done on microgrids and BESS used with data centers to make the utility load even more constant, as well as better handle large drops and even using data centers for load shedding.
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Rival Killer [2996]
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Re: I believe you're confusing peaker plants and seasonal plants...
Nov 17, 2025, 11:39 PM
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Coal plants are not designed to be peakers.
But coal plants are not running at high capacities like the past, they aren’t the steady baseload behemoths of the past. Average capacity factors dropping annually by any measure / definition.
Yes microgrids and BESS increasingly being used with data centers to absorb the wild variability and leave the utility with more constant load. Utility cos increasingly ok w this BTM arrangement for long term.
Good luck w using data centers for any sizeable load shedding.
The only parties looking to put more money into coal are Trump and his campaign donors that own coal assets. We all saw coal prices at the recent fire sale auction. The transaction costs might be higher than the coal. It’s worthless.
Trump doesn’t care if any new coal gets built. He is 1) pledging taxpayer dollars to deliver a campaign promise 2) seeing if he can create buyers for his homeboys that own coal assets.
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Ultimate Tiger [35782]
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Again...coal plants are NOT being used as peakers...
Nov 18, 2025, 10:45 AM
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I could not find one example of one being used for daily peaking. You seem to be claiming they are being used for peaking while at the same time rightly pointing out they're not designed for that/ they don't work well for that.
Also, coal delayed retirement and revamping started a few years ago...it's not just a Trump push. Utilities / states started doing this on their own during Biden admin. It is the right short-term strategy in many areas to help the grid to have a chance to keep up with load growth.
Data centers being used for large scale shedding is on the table in many areas, specifically those with local generation and BESS. Many utilities are moving to start to require it as a condition for connection and/or incentive for priority connection. The DCC seems to be supporting this as an approach as it also can be marketed by them as a net positive for the community.
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Rival Killer [2996]
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Re: Again...coal plants are NOT being used as peakers...
Nov 18, 2025, 11:20 AM
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Yup you’re generally on target
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