Modern AI data centers consume enormous amounts of power, and it looks like they will get even more power-hungry in the coming years as companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI strive towards artificial general intelligence (AGI). Oracle has already outlined plans to use nuclear power plants for its 1-gigawatt datacenters. It looks like Microsoft plans to do the same as it just inked a deal to restart a nuclear power plant to feed its data centers, reports Bloomberg.
So they fixed the leak?
Different reactor. Unit 2 partially melted down, there’s no turning it back on. Unit 1 continued running after Unit 2’s failure, and was only shut down because it became economically unviable
There is something society could learn about itself if we spent anytime thinking honestly about how much of a dead end it is politically speaking to increase our use of nuclear power as a means of reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. Yet, when big corporate interests want it for their own reasons, it is no big thing and almost no politician will speak ill of it. Even though if some kind of disaster comes about because of it they will be left holding the bag of public opinion since that industry is so heavily regulated.
Are we eventually gonna get more fusion because billionaires are demanding more energy for their stupid projects?
Sure, knock yourselves out.
Yeah, too bad there’s no long-term storage for the waste so it will mean more and more leaks polluting land for centuries since the power companies will just go bankrupt when it’s time to do anything about it like with most forms of pollution.
The amount of waste is tiny. Coal plants cause more radiation than nuclear plants because of tiny amounts of radioactive matter in coal. You need to burn so much coal the amount of radioactivity is higher per unit of energy.
Until we shut down all coal plants we shouldn’t even think about closing nuclear plants
That’s for normal activity and it’s totally irrelevant. So these are some stats about ionizing radiation dosages:
- Average from all sources for an average person for 1 year: 4mSv
- Additional if living within 50 miles of a nuclear reactor for 1 year: 0.09 µSv
- Additional of living within 50 miles of a coal plant for 1 year: 0.3 µSv
- Living within 30 km of Chernobyl before evacuation (10 days): 3-150 mSv
- Maximum allowed dose for radiation workers over 1 year: 50mSv
- 10 minutes next to the Chernobyl reactor after the meltdown: 50Sv
- fatal lifetime dosage beyond our ability to treat: ~8Sv
So, yes, nuclear power plants and storage pools are designed to shield radiation and thus during normal operation release an insignificant amount of radiation so much so that even coal burning releases a heck of a lot more.
But both of those are extremely insignificant if you consider that living near a coal plant will only give you a tiny fraction of additional exposure as the amount of radiation you receive normally from natural sources.
The problem is that with nuclear fission waste, a tiny leak can cause fatal amounts of exposure in a very short time. If a storage pool cracks after the 100 years or so they’re designed to last, or if a flood happens and overflows a storage pool, or a tornado picks up that storage water, or any number of other catastrophic events happen within the 10,000-1,000,000 years before that waste is safe, depending on the type, the people living nearby will likely not survive very long and that area will be contaminated for many times longer than human life has existed.
Fukushima was a good example and had to rely on the vast Pacific ocean to disperse the radiation. Chernobyl will be unsafe for 10s of thousands of years even if the coffin is maintained for all that time.
This is how I’m able to sleep without worrying about death, one of these billionaires has got to be funding research so they can live forever. No guarantee they’ll share but that’s at least a less dread inducing issue.
I’m sure that everyone will recognize that this was a great idea in a couple of years when generative LLM AI goes the way of the NFT.
Nfts were a scam from the start something that has no actual purpose utility or value being given value through hype.
Generative AI is very different. In my honest opinion you have to have your head in the sand if you don’t believe that AI is only going to incrementally improve and expand in capabilities. Just like it has year over year for the last 5 to 10 years. And just like for the last decade it continues to solve more and more real-world problems in increasingly effective manners.
It isn’t just constrained to llms either.
I suspect you’re right. But there really is never a good way to tell with these kinds of experimental techs. It could be a runaway chain of improvement. Or it is probably even odds that there is a visible and clear decline before it peters out, or just suddenly slams into a beick wall with no warning.
The creators who made the LLM boom said they cannot improve it any more with the current technique due to diminishing returns.
It’s worthless in its current state.
Should be dying out faster imo.
There are always new techniques and improvements. If you look at the current state, we haven’t even had a slowdown
One of the major problems with LLMs is it’s a “boom”. People are rightfully soured on them as a concept because jackasses trying to make money lie about their capabilities and utility – never mind the ethics of obtaining the datasets used to train them.
They’re absolutely limited, flawed, and there are better solutions for most problems … but beyond the bullshit LLMs are a useful tool for some problems and they’re not going away.
That’s one groups opinion, we still see improving LLMs I’m sure they will continue to improve and be adapted for whatever future use we need them. I mean I personally find them great in their current state for what I use them for
Honestly, it probably is a great idea regardless. The plant operated for a very long time profitably. I’m sure it can again with some maintenance and upgrades. People only know three mile island for the (not so disastrous) disaster, but the rest of the plant operated for decades after without any issues.
It’s one of a hell of an old nuclear plant if it’s the original three mile island one.
with some maintenance and upgrades.
Hopefully we can trust these tech bros to do that properly and without using their usual “move fast and break things” approach.
I had to do a double take to make sure this wasn’t an onion article.
