MIT Review: Can nuclear power really fuel the rise of AI?

[NNadir]

Of course, lest any reader doubt it; I believe nuclear power is the only sustainable form of energy there is.

MIT Review asks the title question:

They say, "no:" Can nuclear power really fuel the rise of AI?

Subtitle:

Tech giants are looking for more energy, but building new reactors takes time.

By Casey Crownhart

Some excerpts:

Over the past year, the likes of Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google have sent out a flurry of announcements related to nuclear energy. Some are about agreements to purchase power from existing plants, while others are about investments looking to boost unproven advanced technologies.

These somewhat unlikely partnerships could be a win for both the nuclear power industry and large tech companies. Tech giants need guaranteed sources of energy, and many are looking for low-emissions ones to hit their climate goals. For nuclear plant operators and nuclear technology developers, the financial support of massive established customers could help keep old nuclear power plants open and push new technologies forward.

“There [are] a lot of advantages to nuclear,” says Michael Terrell, senior director of clean energy and carbon reduction at Google. Among them, he says, are that it’s “clean, firm, carbon-free, and can be sited just about anywhere.” (Firm energy sources are those that provide constant power.)...

...But there’s one glaring potential roadblock: timing. “There are needs on different time scales,” says Patrick White, former research director at the Nuclear Innovation Alliance. Many of these tech companies will require large amounts of power in the next three to five years, White says, but building new nuclear plants can take close to a decade.

Some next-generation nuclear technologies, especially small modular reactors, could take less time to build, but the companies promising speed have yet to build their first reactors—and in some cases they are still years away from even modestly sized demonstrations.

This timing mismatch means that even as tech companies tout plans for nuclear power, they’ll actually be relying largely on fossil fuels, keeping coal plants open, and even building new natural gas plants that could stay open for decades. AI and nuclear could genuinely help each other grow, but the reality is that the growth could be much slower than headlines suggest...

I obviously don't agree with the MIT Review on this score, since I am familiar with the First Nuclear Era, where all kinds of new reactors were built quickly. The real constraint is imagination and the acceptance - the wise acceptance - of risk.

One reality under which we've labored for decades is the absurd calculation that fossil fuels can kill at a vast scale so long as we can't even imagine someone dying from radiation exposure.

I am, to be sure, an outlier as I believe computational power can be and often is a good thing. There is a world beyond tweets, porno, "influencers" and all of the other stuff. Modern science is highly dependent on computational power, and given that people built lots of reactors without as much computational power as is in an Apple Watch today, there is a design synergy.

I'm unimpressed by "MIT says..."

[diane in sf]

1. Both of these abominations will destroy the local water supply.

[NNadir]

2. I have argued that the destruction of the natural water supply by humanity in California...

...for instance the destruction of the Hetch Hetchy Valley for so called "renewable energy" - the crime for which John Muir founded the Sierra Club to try (unsuccessfully) to prevent - can be reversed by shoving antinuke ignorance into the waste basket where it belongs.

My admittedly "pie in the sky" discussion is here: The Energy Required to Supply California's Water with Zero Discharge Supercritical Desalination.

The famous climate scientist James Hansen has argued, antinuke rhetoric and its acceptance kills people:

Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power (Pushker A. Kharecha* and James E. Hansen Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895)

I believe that what he wrote 13 years ago is still true today. Every day, every single day, air pollution - dangerous fossil fuel waste - kills 19,000 people - without a peep from people who whine about their selective attention to perceived nuclear dangers.

Global burden of 87 risk factors in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (Lancet Volume 396, Issue 10258, 17–23 October 2020, Pages 1223-1249).

We are each entitled to have an opinion of what an "abomination" might be. I consider the collapse of the planetary atmosphere, which I lay at the feet of those who embrace antinukism because in almost every case, they know zero about the subject, to be an abomination. I consider the destruction of huge tracts of wilderness - far beyond what John Muir fought against - for so called "renewable energy" to be a crime against the future of humanity and the planet, that is, an abomination.

I consider the deaths of seven million people a year from air pollution, dangerous fossil fuel waste, to be an abomination.

I am unashamed of these strong opinions and I consider them to be of the highest ethical case I can embrace.

My contention is that antinukism kills people, Dr. Hansen's point. I consider these unnecessary deaths to be an abomination.

I reject the calculation that it is OK for 70 million people to die each decade so long as no one ever dies from radiation exposure ever.

Nuclear power need not be without risk, to be vastly superior to everything else. It only needs to be vastly superior to everything else, which it is.

I trust you're having a nice weekend.

[hunter]

3. "Three to five years..." WTF???

Many of these tech companies will require large amounts of power in the next three to five years, White says, but building new nuclear plants can take close to a decade.

That kind of short term thinking will be the ultimate cause of this civilization's collapse.

We ought to be thinking several generations ahead, at the very least we ought to be thinking about the world our grandchildren will inherit.

Data centers are not a necessity. We should not be building them any faster than we can provide clean sustainable energy for them.

Powering these data centers with fossil fuels is obscene.

With any luck this industry will collapse and the sorry remains of it will be sold for pennies on the dollar to scientific and medical institutions that will use it in ways that actually make the world a better place.

Burning fossil fuels to make poor imitations of existing software, YouTube video slop, dull background music for big box stores, naked pictures of ex-girlfriends, to write school term papers and meaningless novels, to sell us crap we don't need, to initiate unjust police surveillance, to violate our Civil Rights... is utterly obscene.