Hungry for Energy, Amazon, Google and Microsoft Turn to Nuclear Power | Large technology companies are investing billions of dollars in nuclear energy as an emissions-free source of electricity for AI
Hungry for Energy, Amazon, Google and Microsoft Turn to Nuclear Power | Large technology companies are investing billions of dollars in nuclear energy as an emissions-free source of electricity for AI
My impression is that this is a PR push, designed to avoid having to invest in renewables, and let them keep on burning gas and coal, rather than something likely to come to fruition.
Honestly, I know this is a polarizing issue, but nuclear is clean and pretty much safe and you don't need batteries for it. Lithium batteries of course being an ecological nightmare. Bring it on I say.
Mostly:
- New nuclear is really expensive
- It also takes a long time to deliver
- The new reactor examples in here consist of reactors from suppliers who haven't done that before
So it has the feel of a plan to promise to spend a lot of money several years from now, and get a lot of PR points today, and quietly cancel the project later.
Well that is, indeed, wack. I appreciate your perspective, I can't believe I missed the "corporations lying for money" angle. I'm usually on top of it.
It also takes a long time to deliver
Not that much. Do remember there's a lot of oil money pouring into FUDing about nuclear.
Mining for nuclear is an ecological disaster, and is often done in poor countries under awful conditions, especially lung cancer due to the radon emissions of uranium.
Arguably it is better than mining for coal, lithium, etc. since those have similar issues, but one gram of uranium contains energy similar to 3 tons of coal.
Try Thorium.
Bring it on I say.
As long as regulation stays in place. Or, better, add even harder regulation (for from security standpoints as well as fiscal) to ensure these fuckers are forced to be actively responsible for the safety and give them no way to back off and abandon a plant.
Let them donate excess power to the grid as well. Eh, fund housing nearby for the homeless.
Investing billions
Weren't the headlines a week or two ago about Microsoft trying to get taxpayer funded aid for reopening 3-mile Island? Companies shouldn't be asking for taxpayer funded handouts when they are basically printing money at this point.
In 10 years they'll be swimming in waste with no permanent storage facilities in existence, a little will leak due to cist cutting, and they'll let those shell companies go bankrupt to avoid ever having to deal with it.
In 10 years they’ll be swimming in waste
Stop FUDing.
How is that FUD? A fuel rod lasts about 3-5 years. And there is no permanent storage place in the US (or any other countries for that matter) or reprocessing technology being developed anywhere. So in a decade, if they are running several reactors, they'll have a bunch of rods sitting in giant pools with nowhere safe to put them.
Is “AI” (ie, large language modeling, also known as enhanced word prediction; and with no logical reasoning ability) really so important that this infrastructure needs to be built?
For the love of the gods, let this bubble burst already!
Let them build green energy before it bursts... although, as another user pointed out, this may be the usual money grab and nothing gets built in the end.
Conveniently, the heat from all this power being generated and subsequently used in the data centres doesn't count as emmissions. Twats.
Fairly so - it isn't emissions, and does not contribute to the problem in a meaningful way.
The reason why emissions are dangerous is because they trap solar heat at large enough scales to change the global climate. Server farm heating isn't really anywhere near contributing at that scale.