this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We're considering letting Oracle, Meta, and Microsoft (that I know of) reactivate or otherwise make use of nuclear power plants to power their AI ambitions. How long before that turns into owning and operating nuclear reactors in house? Now I'm not of the opinion that nuclear power is inherently unsafe but if I had to pick my worst case scenario of implementation it may well be letting big tech run a facility like that.

On the other hand, I see first hand on a daily basis the kind of power consumption we're talking about putting to use for AI and that's a huge fucking problem if you care about the environment at all. I don't know what the right answer is. All I can say is I hope we invent scalable fusion reactors, or some other way to harness vast amounts of energy, very quickly. Otherwise this is not going to end well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If that’s what they want, then make them pay for it. No subsidies for this bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

I wish they would pay for it themselves. Microsoft is getting a $1.6 billion federal loan to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1, which was shut down because it was not profitable. They will probably find out that a half century old power plant is too expensive to run and shut it back down within a few years.