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Jet engines now power data centers
The blade bottleneck
The bottleneck is turbine blades, which are made in only two facilities, one in America and one in Europe. Each is a giant building with a 40-ton press, and both now run 24-hour shifts.
New players
Demand has pulled in new players. Boom Supersonic, the company building a new supersonic jet, decided to build a turbine business first because it had so much demand. Elon Musk is reported to have bought a turbine company personally, and Caterpillar, Cummins, GE Vernova, and Siemens Energy are all expanding capacity.
Used jet engines
Used jet engines have become part of the supply. People are taking engines off old planes and repurposing them as turbines to power data centers, which is a big part of why residual values on private jets are extremely strong.
How does a jet engine run a power plant?
A gas turbine burns fuel in compressed air and spins a turbine. A jet uses the exhaust for thrust, while a power plant uses a shaft to turn a generator. Engines adapted this way are called aeroderivatives. GE's LM2500, introduced around 1970, descended from the TF39 aircraft engine and went on to power ships and power stations.
Why are turbine blades so hard to make?
Blades in the hottest section sit in gas hotter than the melting point of the metal they are made from. They survive because they are cast from nickel-based superalloys, often as a single crystal with no grain boundaries, and carved with tiny internal air channels. A ceramic thermal barrier coating adds further protection. Each blade is also machined to tight tolerances, since small imbalances at those speeds shake the whole machine.
Why build power next to a data center?
Connecting to the grid means joining an interconnection queue. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Queued Up reports have found that projects often wait years for studies and upgrades before they can connect. Generating power on site skips that wait, though the plant then needs its own fuel supply. Natural gas pipelines are the usual source.
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