Is that still doable or are we really struggling now to find those grid connections?

Well, I think if you look at the applications, the different applications present different challenges.

And the LLMs, the large language models that the hyperscalers are looking to build are typically 100 plus megawatts at a time.

And that's really hard to find right across Europe.

And so when you find a piece of land that has that kind of power connection to it, And that's usually picked up very quickly, even speculatively by an operator, knowing that at some point he's going to be asked to come along and build a data center on it by one of the hyperscalers.

So I think from anything above 100 megawatts in the US, these range from minimum 100 megawatts up to a gigawatt campus for the hyperscalers.

So it's very, very hard to find that sort of quantum in Europe anymore.

But also, does nuclear actually give you the power quality that you want because the power consumption in data centers it's not like it's flat the whole time it actually modulates up and down in very very very very fast speed so

Mike, do you agree with those? Have you got any other ones that you think are core to the ability to deliver on time?

Yeah, I think I completely agree.

The safety is paramount.

You know, the reputation of the entire industry, you know, it's all about doing things more efficiently for the end user.

You know, the internet is quicker, faster, more efficient.

But when it comes to safety, you know, that kind of cuts through that.

sits front and center i think the the other thing from um an operator's point of view is that you know you have to have realism as well um you know and and a lot of a lot of suppliers you know they'll say yeah yeah we can do this we can do that and and actually what you need again coming back to having a partner in this and having a certain level of realism and contingency and saying you know We are more comfortable guaranteeing you are ready for service date because we built in all the checks and balances and that helps the operator because the customer just wants to know the date.

Go

Uh, what, what, what do you think's at stake here?

Well, I think, first of all, the, uh, the-- I've been listening to, uh, to your earlier colleague there, and, uh, I think there's a lot of, um, there's certainly a lack of education, um, on the, the actual facts around data centers.

And secondly, there's a lot of scaremongering.

And first of all, you've got to, got to think about data centers as a piece of, of, of infrastructure.

It's utility.

The data center doesn't consume anything.

We do.

Okay, so would you say that these data centers are essential?

Does that computing have to happen in Britain, where electricity is more expensive than nearly anywhere else on Earth? You know, if energy is cheaper in America, France, Scandinavia, wouldn't it be better and cheaper for us if we just had the computers there?

So the reason you need data centers locally is, well, there, there are many, many factors.

One could be latency, right? Where...

I've seen the, uh, the Waymo.

I'm sure you've seen the Waymo cars driving around London doing their testing, right? Would you be happy if, um, two Waymos are driving towards each other, and they have to communicate with Seattle to, uh, to decide which one's gonna swerve left and which one's gonna swerve right before they hit each other? You need very, very localized latency sensitive applications to, to deal with these things, and that has to be a local, a local data center.

In addition to that, you know, you may have data sovereignty issues, right? So, so, you know, the UK, um, tends to want their, their citizens' data housed within country.

Are you happy with, you know, your data being housed in a, in a completely random country, maybe you don't even know where? Well, if, if you don't have any data centers, you can't house your own data.

Michael Tobin thinks Britain needs to become much more pragmatic about how these places are powered.

What are you eating there?

A taco.

Who? A taco.

Okay, all

And what do you do, Michael? Follow him on Instagram,

Michael Tobin.

I swim coach.