Several recent events across the country again highlighted the nexus between broadcasting and the power grid.
Power in the United States comprises two camps, generation and delivery. Both areas have been under assault — the former from excessive demand on limited facilities, the latter by an insufficient and deteriorating distribution network that is particularly susceptible to severe weather.
On the generation side, there’s a large and broad discussion about the nearly exponential increase in demand for electric power as a function of the use of electric vehicles and, more dramatically, of AI and the mining of Bitcoin.
The October 2024 issue of the monthly IEEE Spectrum journal featured an article about nuclear power plants and their relevance to the cloud, AI and big data.
It showed an interesting graphic comparing the “watt hours” consumed by a Google search vs. an AI-powered web search — respectively, 0.3 and 6.9 watt-hours. An increase of 23 times! We’re seeing the common present to the projected new.
I think this suggests the power shortages to come. We’re going to need a lot more power if this one AI example is valid.
As far as Bitcoin mining, I expect to see a practical arrangement that has already started to take hold. As in the making of aluminum, which also requires a massive amount of power, hydro dams and nuclear plants will be able to forecast when demand is low, and high-consumption activities will run off-hours using power that otherwise would be forfeit.
Why all this matters to radio is that we’re fast approaching a point where our standby generators will become “bridging power” to carry us through the periods of brownouts and blackouts that I believe are coming.
The mother’s milk of broadcasting is power. No power, no radio.
So what should we do, what is the decision chain?
I and my Radio World contributor colleagues like Mark Persons and Cris Alexander have written extensively about alternate power sources over the years. The important universal thread is power quality — especially in waveform, as so much of our system requires clean sinewave power.
Beyond such considerations, stations will have to face some big-money decisions and decide how much they’re willing to invest to keep their signals and businesses running. Do they want just to stay on the air when power fails, adopting a minimalist approach that protects only basic functionality?
Or do they want to assure seamless programming? Or do they still want to conduct full business even if power fails, e.g. production, news, sales, all business systems, total creature comforts such as HVAC, vehicle chargers for the station autos?
Executives need to start thinking about the reliability of their power sources and how to protect them better.
The new administration in Washington promises a comprehensive energy approach; if it delivers, we may get some respite. Yet our power problem will grow significantly, regardless, as demand mushrooms. The hour of decisions will soon be upon us.
