Microsoft buying Three Mile Island reactor to power AI

[Moonbeam]

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

Except for the fact that the benefits are all for today and the downsides inherited by your children. And if you bury a gun it won’t kill anybody in a ten thousand years. It’s a great idea until it becomes an environmental catastrophe.

 

[Paratus]

And the downsides of guns are all today with 40,000+ dead every year. But I guess the benefit is the dead won’t have to worry about any potential environmental impacts from nuclear waste.

 

[Zorba]

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

Seems like we could just control the reprocessing stream.

 

[Moonbeam]

Seems like we could just control the reprocessing stream.

The nuclear industry like the fossil fuel industry spends billions on propaganda in the hopes of making money.

The argument used here against me is amazingly unscientific, in my opinion, because I could be right or wrong about either or both my opposition to complete gun bans and banning nuclear energy. Liberals can be gun ban nuts and pro nuclear nuts. These are separate issues entirely and people can. any one individual can be ++ +- -+ or -- on those issues with no common thread.

 

[Moonbeam]

Seems like we could just control the reprocessing stream.

We need to re-engineer human genetics to eliminate our shit and move lifestyle. We have covered the planet and it's a small blue marble that is the only place suitable for life we know of within trillions of miles.

 

[darkswordsman17]

You don’t think Microsoft’s ability to make a profit is contingent on them not melting down a nuclear reactor? 🙄 Chill the fuck out, we should be building out nuclear power. AI is here to stay so it’s this or burning more fossil fuels. This is better.

Considering Microsoft can't even make submersible servers without it causing environmental damage, yes I fucking do have serious concerns about them operating a nuclear power plant, let alone one with the history and location of 3 Mile Island.

I guess I should be thankful they're not combining the 2, buying a nuclear sub to run submersible servers.

You could make the same argument for fossil fuel companies and yet we have shit like the BP oil spill, Exxon Valdez, and countless other. Hell they can't even run trains without poisoning towns. Why can't food companies manage to stop shipping shit with Listeria or E. Coli, after all they're just profit driven and that'd hurt their profits to sell contaminated food?

Did you forget that one of the mottos of modern tech bros is "move fast, break stuff". And that they think regulations are such a hindrance to them doing that that they literally want to fucking get rid of democracy to try to alleviate it.

If you think this is going to reduce fossil fuel use for AI you're also fucking delusional. Like grade A fucking moron level delusional. This is them trying to get ahead of things knowing the power grid can't support their insane power use. Plus them knowing that if they turn the whole country or developed world into Texas, people are gonna be fucking pissed.

Add Oracle to this list.

News - Oracle is going nuclear over growing demand for AI datacenters

Oracle's interest in SMRs as a power source comes as the cloud provider looks to expand its datacenter footprint. "Oracle has 162 cloud datacenters, live and under construction throughout the world. The largest of these datacenters is 800 megawatts, and it will contain acres of Nvidia GPU...

forums.anandtech.com

 

[darkswordsman17]

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

This is not true. Seriously, do you know literally fucking nothing about what you're talking about?

Bill Gates continues to 'backstage' manage Microsoft despite official departure, as Satya Nadella relies on his advice for Microsoft's transformative AI initiative

Despite seemingly exiting Microsoft, Bill Gates still plays a major role in the firm's decision making process.

www.windowscentral.com

Exclusive: Bill Gates On Advising OpenAI, Microsoft And Why AI Is ‘The Hottest Topic Of 2023’

The Microsoft cofounder talked to Forbes about his work with AI unicorn OpenAI and back on Microsoft’s campus, AI’s potential impact on jobs and in medicine, and much more.

www.forbes.com

But he still spends about 10% of his time at its Redmond, Washington headquarters, meeting with product teams, he says.

Yeah, he has nothing to do with Microsoft.

He seems to be increasing his input with Microsoft after the divorce too, and he's gone full AI crazy. Bill is a HUGE reason why Microsoft tied themselve to OpenAI. You've apparently not been paying any actual attention or something cause goddamn the stuff you're spouting in this thread is just the dumbest fucking shit I've seen for some time.

 

[sdifox]

Considering Microsoft can't even make submersible servers without it causing environmental damage, yes I fucking do have serious concerns about them operating a nuclear power plant, let alone one with the history and location of 3 Mile Island.

I guess I should be thankful they're not combining the 2, buying a nuclear sub to run submersible servers.

You could make the same argument for fossil fuel companies and yet we have shit like the BP oil spill, Exxon Valdez, and countless other. Hell they can't even run trains without poisoning towns. Why can't food companies manage to stop shipping shit with Listeria or E. Coli, after all they're just profit driven and that'd hurt their profits to sell contaminated food?

Did you forget that one of the mottos of modern tech bros is "move fast, break stuff". And that they think regulations are such a hindrance to them doing that that they literally want to fucking get rid of democracy to try to alleviate it.

If you think this is going to reduce fossil fuel use for AI you're also fucking delusional. Like grade A fucking moron level delusional. This is them trying to get ahead of things knowing the power grid can't support their insane power use. Plus them knowing that if they turn the whole country or developed world into Texas, people are gonna be fucking pissed.

Add Oracle to this list.

News - Oracle is going nuclear over growing demand for AI datacenters

Oracle's interest in SMRs as a power source comes as the cloud provider looks to expand its datacenter footprint. "Oracle has 162 cloud datacenters, live and under construction throughout the world. The largest of these datacenters is 800 megawatts, and it will contain acres of Nvidia GPU...

forums.anandtech.com

MS is buying power, not operating the plant.

 

[repoman0]

MS is buying power, not operating the plant.

You’re too late. He already died of his 90th rage aneurysm that he’s had on this forum.

 

[IronWing]

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.)

Government did exactly that and we ended up with the taxpayers footing the bill for cleaning up the enrichment plants, the uranium mines and mills, and future liability for the wastes. Nuclear power only works in a heavily subsidized environment. Government involvement on the production side led to people being poisoned. Government can’t be both regulator and regulated party. It never works.

<== former regulator in nuclear fuel cycle cleanup

 

[hal2kilo]

Meanwhile in realityville..

Even solar energy’s biggest fans are underestimating it

“When you look at the absolute numbers...it is completely sort of mind-blowing.”

www.motherjones.com

We really don't need to toxify places for 250000 years.

 

[cytg111]

Sabine spits truth again

How AI will obtain world domination.

 

[fskimospy]

Meanwhile in realityville..

Even solar energy’s biggest fans are underestimating it

“When you look at the absolute numbers...it is completely sort of mind-blowing.”

www.motherjones.com

We really don't need to toxify places for 250000 years.

Every power generation source has drawbacks but nuclear power is good! It's safe, reliable, and carbon free. Coal plants have killed way way more people than nuclear plants ever have, after all.

 

[Steltek]

MS is buying power, not operating the plant.

Exactly.

New incoming product alert - Microsoft Bob (Special AI Edition) for Nuclear Reactors!

 

[hal2kilo]

Every power generation source has drawbacks but nuclear power is good! It's safe, reliable, and carbon free. Coal plants have killed way way more people than nuclear plants ever have, after all.

I will agree with your last statement. And this is one of those areas where I do not believe everything my government tells me. I've seen it with my own eyes.

 

[Paratus]

I will agree with your last statement. And this is one of those areas where I do not believe everything my government tells me. I've seen it with my own eyes.

Are you talking commercial nuclear power or DOD?

 

[hal2kilo]

Are you talking commercial nuclear power or DOD?

DOD in my experience.