"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
Nuclear power is completely safe, I live in Illinois and we've never had a disaster even though we generate most of our energy from it. Having a modern nuclear power plant nearby would be awesome, and would continue to lower the price of electricity. A data center would just increase the price of electricity and waste water.
If you count taxes it might not be economically feasible: "A 2019 study by the economic think tank DIW Berlin, found that nuclear power has not been profitable anywhere in the world." Wikipedia
Nuclear is one of the most expensive sources of electricity. I grew up near a nuclear power plant, and it had so many incidents it seemed like it was shut down more often than it was running. One incident involved corrosion almost completely eating through the containment, which sounds pretty scary to me, but I'm not a nuclear technician.
dude I am so excited the corpos fuck up all the time... The turdherd gonna get vaperized... revolution now or distruction later... either way justice is always served
Nuclear power plants are more regulated than data centers so it makes some sense.
One has gas turbines and the other a nuclear reactor. Statistically the latter is less lethal.
one of them is awful for the ecosystem, pollutes our water supply and fresh air, and wastes millions of dollars on a volatile possibly dangerous technology
the other one is a pretty good source of energy.
one of them is awful for the ecosystem, pollutes our water supply and fresh air,
These things only really follow as a consequence of them being powered by fossil fuels - the only thing the data centers themselves generate is heat and consequently they require water for cooling.
However, nuclear is the undefeated champion when it comes to generating heat and requiring water for cooling, so if I were concerned about the impacts of a data center with regards to water usage, I'd be equally or more concerned about the construction of a nuclear power plant.
Wind and solar on the other hand have none of these problems
Nuclear plant has closed water system and usually dumps heat to nearby lake or sea. It ofc has environmental impact but less on freahwater usage compared to AI data centers that cool machines using freah water and in a way hard to recover water.
Tho when it comes to nuclear plant the elephant in the room is the hazardous waste it produces that takes next 100,000 years to settle. We're doing "let's fuck around bcs we won't find out in our lifetime" again.
Wind (and tidal) are affected by climate, may become unsustainable and imo the true free energy is solar.
Nuclear waste is solvable, just not with existing market mechanisms. There were plans to reprocess nuclear waste before tge fall of the USSR lowered the price of Uranium ore.
Climate change is solvable, just not with existing market mechanisms.
Not a great comparison given that climate change does continuous, irreparable damage, whereas nuclear waste from power plants just sits there. Nuclear waste from nuclear weapon production is its own issue tho.
If it doesn't do anything and 'just sits there' why do we have to be so careful where we put it? I don't normally bury all my harmless materials at the bottom of a mine
So that it does continue to just sit there. If you dissolve it in ground water or concentrate so much of it it vaporizes or break it up and disperse it, it is no longer just sitting there.
Also lots of materials are harmless when treated correctly, and dangerous if dispersed.
Nuclear plant has closed water system and usually dumps heat to nearby lake or sea. It ofc has environmental impact but less on freahwater usage compared to AI data centers that cool machines using freah water and in a way hard to recover water.
Why would a data center not be able to employ the same mechanism of having a closed water system and dumping heat?
Waste management is an issue for sure when it comes to nuclear, but the economics of nuclear is arguably the bigger problem - not to mention their uninsurability.
Closed watet system is expensive and less scalable construction wise.
Nuclear plant employs it because the water has direct contact to the nuclear fuel, containing radioactive minerals. It cannot be released outside without treatment. It is necessity than choice. Companies would've chosen open water system if regulation allowed to so that they don't have to pay the cleanup fee.
My understanding is that all nuclear power plants have a primary closed loop system (for the direct contact part), but the secondary cooling system, by heat exchange with the closed system, can either be evaporative or by heat exchange with an available body of water.
Nuclear plant has been historically built nearby water body without water loss (evaporating). Shift to open system happened mostly in US. Majority of plants are still located in coast side (UK, Korea, Japan, Finland etc) using sea water, inland one still utilize river water (France).
For new US reactors likely employ open system so your water concern stands, though its open evaporation system is optimized better than unoptimized data center ones.
because a closed system is more expensive than an open one. We live in capitalism where maximizing profits is the name of the game.
Alright, so we mandate it, and then nuclear power plants are on the same level of consuming water as data centers - which is still not good, that was my point, mind you
good luck mandating it when town halls full of locals screaming at their local level officials not to build a data center doesnt even work.
typical nuclear plants consume about 1.5-3 cubic meters of water per MWh, but when the plant is near a water body so very often only about 1% of that so about 20 liters. So a 1GW plant would actually lose about 500 000 liters of water each day, rest is put back into it's water source body.
AI datacenters typically use 1-15 million liters of usually treated water daily so a larger datacenter is an order of magnitude higher water consumer than a nuclear power plant.
Here here!🙌
I'd rather live next to a nuclear power plant than a slop producing resource wasting datacenter
Here here
Hear hear
*FTFY
They're raising there hand to show they want a nuclear plant right there.
Why not? At least one of them does some good for the community.
When they are constantly spitting out dangerous sound and infrasound pollution to those who live near them, I think it's perfectly understandable
I would just rather live in the woods
gipity drones with the boots and the flur
Trump has been cutting federal funding for firefighting, and DOGE cut FEMA.
How does that have anything to do with what I said?
Uhhhhhh.... you can't just do what you want in ol mcdonald yankkkkeee land. Park services and forest fires. come on now .... 2+2 = 4
The forest will catch fire and there won't be enough firefighters with enough equipment who can get to your home fast enough to save it. The increasing risk of wildfires will make homeowner's insurance in forested areas exorbitantly expensive, and even if you do pay for it they will tie you up in auditing for 3-5 years to try to avoid paying out. There will be no government relief funds.
Man you're crazy
you cray cray
The Camp Fire destroyed 95% of the buildings in the town of Paradise, CA in 2018
In May 2019, NPR reported that more than 1,000 families who were displaced by the fire were still looking for housing six months later.
The Camp Fire was the most expensive natural disaster in the world in 2018 in terms of insured losses. The firm Munich Re estimated that the fire caused $12.5 billion in covered losses and $16 billion in total losses.
No question.
How bout neither?