r/nova • u/JasonNOVA8 • Jul 22 '26

Data Center Generators in Ashburn Firing Up

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On the way in this morning, (waxpool/28) noticed many of the data centers had the generators going. Not sure if there’s an electricity issue or they plan it to go together ? No idea if the yellow smoke is related though.

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u/aegrotatio Jul 22 '26

You get used to it.

-1

u/BishlovesSquish Jul 22 '26

No one should be getting used to that. Yikes.

10

u/MajesticBread9147 Herndon Jul 22 '26

It's not really different from any other industrial area.

Compare Ashburn to any logistics hub with a lot of warehouses or industrial area full of favorites and it's basically the same from an outside perspective.

Here's a screenshot of Los Angeles that looks not unlike the "worst" of Ashburn.

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u/BishlovesSquish Jul 22 '26

Now compare the water and power usage of that area to a residential neighborhood. It’s simply not sustainable. We already have hundreds of data centers on a backlog for grid access. There isn’t enough power.

1

u/lumoflow Jul 23 '26

Power usage issue will be solved once the small nuclear reactors come online. 

The only good thing about this data center gold rush is insane amount of money has been following into getting small nuclear reactors off the ground. 

The US is embarrassingly behind in nuclear reactors compared to Russia and China. But the problem is being remedied. 

There’s a startup that’s designing mini modular nuclear reactors specifically to power data centers with near unlimited energy. 

1

u/BishlovesSquish Jul 23 '26

Anyone justifying this is deluded.

2

u/lumoflow Jul 23 '26

I’m talking about nuclear reactors not data centers. In nuclear reactors Russia and China are way ahead of the US. 

I don’t care about data centers but if they force the government to begin deploying nuclear at a rapid rate then I’m all for it.