Microsoft buying Three Mile Island reactor to power AI

[brycejones]

Holtec says late next year but that's mostly going to depend on the NRC.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-regulator-says-michigan-nuclear-plant-needs-work-before-restart-2024-09-18/

 

[sdifox]

They could have just spent 1B on gigawatt solar including storage

 

[Drach]

I'm fine with it as long as 100% of the waste is buried on Bill Gates and his kids property.

 

[repoman0]

I'm fine with it as long as 100% of the waste is buried on Bill Gates and his kids property.

That’s great and all but Bill Gates has nothing to do with Microsoft and hasn’t for a long time.

 

[Brainonska511]

I'm fine with it as long as 100% of the waste is buried on Bill Gates and his kids property.

Overall, the amount of waste generated is actually quite small. However, we should be reprocessing the waste to reduce the amount of waste and reduce the need for more uranium mining.

 

[K1052]

They could have just spent 1B on gigawatt solar including storage

Doesn’t sound like a big deal time wise, per the company anyway.

 

[borosp1]

Constellation Energy looks to be a good stock to buy long term.. Jumped 22% today to $254.98.

 

[Paratus]

I'm fine with it as long as 100% of the waste is buried on Bill Gates and his kids property.

While this sounds like a bad ass threat it actually wouldn’t be much of an issue.

The AI Boom Could Use a Shocking Amount of Electricity

Powering artificial intelligence models takes a lot of energy. A new analysis demonstrates just how big the problem could become

www.scientificamerican.com

This Scientific American article from last years estimates Nvidia would ship 1.5M AI servers using a whopping 85.4 Terrawatt Hours (TWh) per year in 2027.

Assuming a US reactor capacity of factor of 90% that would be equivalent to 10.8 GW of new nuclear power.

A kilogram of enriched Uranium can produce about 24 Gigawatt Hours (GWh).

So 3560kg of enriched uranium could power all Nvida AI servers in 2027.

Uranium is really dense at 19 grams/cm^3. That 3560kg would take up about 188 liters or 49.5 gallons comfortably fitting in a single 55 gallon drum.

While Bill Gates owns about a quarter million acres of land let’s assume he stores it at his 10.5 acre estate in Washington.

No issue storing a single drum on 10.5 acres. Even if it needs its own storage pool and containment building he could easily sacrifice that last .5 acres and store the spent uranium from ALL AI servers.


If we limit it to just the ones potentially powered by 3 Mile Island (815MW) then we’re looking at about 1/13 of that 49.5 gallons or 3.75 gallons of spent fuel per year.

It’s just not a lot.

 

[cytg111]

Shit if Microsoft and openai is gonna spawn the first AGI then thats the only stock thats gonna matter

 

[Zorba]

I just think it’s odd that America’s corporate dominated society has put us in this position. We should all be benefiting from greater access to nuclear power—not just some software company. Because of the startup costs involved and ROI making nuclear a difficult proposition for the market, we should have a government program along the lines of the Tennessee Valley Authority 2.0 to help nuclear power proliferate safely (especially in coal-dominated areas like WVa, PA and rural plains/western states) with a focus on the total lifecycle of the fuel rods (I.e. not just the energy production component but fuel sourcing, production, waste management etc.—things a for-profit company won’t want to deal with.)

Or... Just make a law that says all AI power must come from nuclear and let the AI companies build up the nuclear infrastructure .

 

[Moonbeam]

I'm all for nuclear power once we clean up all toxic waste sights in the world, clean plastic from the ocean, solve global warming and establish a hundred thousand year clean record of safe storage of nuclear waste. Otherwise I will continue to think that engineers have their heads up their asses imagining that the human solution to attracting predators to their accumulation of shit on the forest floor is to move to a new location and shit there. Engineers don't have a reputation as social misfits for no reason. They are deeply out of touch with what they feel.

Trust me. I was designing weapons of mass destruction in the fourth grade most of which would not be build until many decades later and a number of which as far as I know have never seen the light of day and one of which is a favorite SciFi apocalyptic movie theme today.

 

[Paratus]

I'm all for nuclear power once we clean up all toxic waste sights in the world, clean plastic from the ocean, solve global warming and establish a hundred thousand year clean record of safe storage of nuclear waste. Otherwise I will continue to think that engineers have their heads up their asses imagining that the human solution to attracting predators to their accumulation of shit on the forest floor is to move to a new location and shit there. Engineers don't have a reputation as social misfits for no reason. They are deeply out of touch with what they feel.

Trust me. I was designing weapons of mass destruction in the fourth grade most of which would not be build until many decades later and a number of which as far as I know have never seen the light of day and one of which is a favorite SciFi apocalyptic movie theme today.

Meh. It’s a lot safer than owning a gun and it provides real benefits.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

I'd prefer to see M$ and their fakery widget gizmo shut down.

 

[WelshBloke]

While this sounds like a bad ass threat it actually wouldn’t be much of an issue.

The AI Boom Could Use a Shocking Amount of Electricity

Powering artificial intelligence models takes a lot of energy. A new analysis demonstrates just how big the problem could become

www.scientificamerican.com

This Scientific American article from last years estimates Nvidia would ship 1.5M AI servers using a whopping 85.4 Terrawatt Hours (TWh) per year in 2027.

Assuming a US reactor capacity of factor of 90% that would be equivalent to 10.8 GW of new nuclear power.

A kilogram of enriched Uranium can produce about 24 Gigawatt Hours (GWh).

So 3560kg of enriched uranium could power all Nvida AI servers in 2027.

Uranium is really dense at 19 grams/cm^3. That 3560kg would take up about 188 liters or 49.5 gallons comfortably fitting in a single 55 gallon drum.

While Bill Gates owns about a quarter million acres of land let’s assume he stores it his 10.5 acre estate in Washington.

No issue storing a single drum on 10.5 acres. Even if it needs its own stage pool and containment building he could easily sacrifice that last .5 acres and store the expended Uranium from ALL AI servers.


If we limit it to just the ones potentially powered by 3 Mile Island (815MW) then we’re looking at about 1/13 of that 49.5 gallons or 3.75 gallons of spent fuel per year.

It’s just not a lot.

I'm not sure that the physical size of nuclear waste has been the historical problem with dealing with it!

 

[sdifox]

I still don't get why the States refuses to reprocess nuclear waste.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I still don't get why the States refuses to reprocess nuclear waste.

Is it a refusal or a lack of necessity? All told we've generated like what, a football field worth of waste total? In almost a century? If we leaned into nuclear enough to actually produce stuff, we'd probably have need to build breeder reactors and whatnot.

 

[brycejones]

I'd prefer to see M$ and their fakery widget gizmo shut down.

Wat?

 

[Brainonska511]

Is it a refusal or a lack of necessity? All told we've generated like what, a football field worth of waste total? In almost a century? If we leaned into nuclear enough to actually produce stuff, we'd probably have need to build breeder reactors and whatnot.

It is a refusal. The US has blocked commercial reprocessing since the 70s because of proliferation fears.

 

[sdifox]

Proliferation from breeder plant is a stupid fear. Much easier to get fission material from the former USSR.

Also, we should stop kicking the can down the road. At least try to make it a smaller can.

 

[sdifox]

Also, why aren't data centers looking at co-generation? Should be able to at least recover 50% of the waste heat from servers through WHP.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2015-07/documents/waste_heat_to_power_systems.pdf

 

[hal2kilo]

Constellation Energy looks to be a good stock to buy long term.. Jumped 22% today to $254.98.

I would put that in the same category as owning FB. Which I will never do again, no matter how much money I could have made.

 

[Paratus]

I'm not sure that the physical size of nuclear waste has been the historical problem with dealing with it!

The basic problem is allowing the high level waste to leach into the ground water or burn and end up spreading over a large area. High level waste still has a lot of residual radioactivity making heat and it needs to be cooled.

The fact that there isn’t much waste helps make it easier to store. What we should be doing is reprocessing it into more fuel. We are only using like 5-10% of the available energy.

If you reprocess it and keep using it eventually you are left with waste that is only radioactive for a few decades instead of millennia. However….

I still don't get why the States refuses to reprocess nuclear waste.

Is it a refusal or a lack of necessity? All told we've generated like what, a football field worth of waste total? In almost a century? If we leaned into nuclear enough to actually produce stuff, we'd probably have need to build breeder reactors and whatnot.

The reason the US doesn’t reprocess much fuel is to prevent nuclear proliferation because the plutonium created during the use of and reprocessing of uranium reactor fuel could be used to make nuclear weapons.

It seems that risk could be mitigated in other ways and reprocessing should be used drastically reduce the amount of high level waste we have and cut mining requirements for fresh uranium.

Edit: what y’all said up above

 

[hal2kilo]

The basic problem is allowing the high level waste to leach into the ground water or burn and end up spreading over a large area. High level waste still has a lot of residual radioactivity making heat and it needs to be cooled.

The fact that there isn’t much waste helps make it easier to store. What we should be doing is reprocessing it into more fuel. We are only using like 5-10% of the available energy.

If you reprocess it and keep using it eventually you are left with waste that is only radioactive for a few decades instead of millennia. However….



The reason the US doesn’t reprocess much fuel is to prevent nuclear proliferation because the plutonium created during the use of and reprocessing of uranium reactor fuel could be used to make nuclear weapons.

It seems that risk could be mitigated in other ways and reprocessing should be used drastically reduce the amount of high level waste we have and cut mining requirements for fresh uranium.

Edit: what y’all said up above

Hanford is really close to the Columbia. The government is spending billions to clean up, and they'v e barely made a scratch.

 

[sdifox]

The basic problem is allowing the high level waste to leach into the ground water or burn and end up spreading over a large area. High level waste still has a lot of residual radioactivity making heat and it needs to be cooled.

The fact that there isn’t much waste helps make it easier to store. What we should be doing is reprocessing it into more fuel. We are only using like 5-10% of the available energy.

If you reprocess it and keep using it eventually you are left with waste that is only radioactive for a few decades instead of millennia. However….



The reason the US doesn’t reprocess much fuel is to prevent nuclear proliferation because the plutonium created during the use of and reprocessing of uranium reactor fuel could be used to make nuclear weapons.

It seems that risk could be mitigated in other ways and reprocessing should be used drastically reduce the amount of high level waste we have and cut mining requirements for fresh uranium.

Edit: what y’all said up above

France has been reprocessing for decades. I don't recall ever hearing about them losing Plutonium. Hell even Russia can manage to reprocess.

 

[Paratus]

Hanford is really close to the Columbia. The government is spending billions to clean up, and they'v e barely made a scratch.

Yup.
But Hanford was an orignal site for production of plutonium for nuclear weapons. It started in the 40’s well before the nuclear regulatory commission and as a DOD site wouldn’t have been subject to their regulations any way.

So Hanford is an example of what not to do.

Hopefully a civilian reprocessing plant would have stronger safety controls and inspections.