For some reason this doesn’t feel like good news.
After they decide to abandon their AI project can we use them for something meaningful?
Probably not… It’s a pretty outdated energy source already.
Not at all! Nuclear is an excellent compliment to renewables and as a companion source to support the grid they are actually really effective. They’re also really useful in situations where renewables just aren’t an option such as large scale shipping. Obviously we haven’t seen any nuclear container ships yet but that’s mostly around startup and infrastructure costs as well as outdated regulations.
With small nuclear reactors becoming commonplace I wouldn’t be supprised if we start to see nuclear shipping becoming a thing in industry in the next 20-50 years.
Its already been proven as a reliable, safe, and effective power source in a naval context. The main hangup people seem to have is with accidents at sea, however again, the militaries of the world have already proven nuclear reactors safe in a number of accidents where a nuclear vessel has been lost and the reactors shut down safely and did not cause release of nuclear material.
At last, we’ll be seeing nuclear reactors being created using Agile! Fail early, fail often, hopefully don’t kill everyone!
Amazon has a space program with rockets, Google is acquiring the nuclear facilities, will Microsoft develop a weapons manufacturing facility?
I am suprised to see all the negativity. I for one think this is awesome and would love to see SMRs become more mainstream.
I think the negativity is more about it being used for AI than to solve any important problems with the world.
Expecting corporations to “solve important problems in the world” is foolish though. You should expect your government to tax them fairly so that they can work on people problems and maybe it takes corporations a few years longer to afford their own fleet of nuclear power stations.
I agree, and it is possibly the only good thing to come out of AI.
Like people asking “why do we need to go to the moon?!”.Fly-by-wire (ie pilot controls decoupled from physical actuators), so modern air travel.
Integrated circuits (IE multiple transistors - and other components - in the same silicon package). Basically miniaturisation and reduction in power consumption of computers.
GPS. The Apollo missions lead to the rocket tech/science for geosynchronous orbits require for GPS.
This time it is commercial.
I’d rather the power requirements were covered by non-carbon sources. However it proves the tech for future use.For a similar example, I have a strong dislike of Elon Musk. He has ruined the potential of Twitter and Tesla, but SpaceX has had some impressive accomplishments.
Google are a shitty company. I wish the nuclear power went towards shutting down carbon power.
But SOMEONE has to take the risk. I wish that someone was a government. But it’s Google. So… Kind of a win?I’d rather the power requirements were covered by non-carbon sources
Is nuclear not?
I forgot what I was trying to say there.
I think it’s along the lines of “I’d rather we didn’t need a ridiculous amount of new power, but at least it’s being covered by non-carbon sources”.
CorpoNations.
We’re living in a cyberpunk nightmare
Not yet we’re not!
Still plenty of nature to kill before humanity cannot survive in any capacity without corpo supply chains.
If you’re breathing free air, drinking real water, and actual food can grow out of the ground we’re comparably in cyber paradise given how much worse AI spycraft and corporate ownership will worsen everything exponentially for the non-connected over the next decades
I think by the end of this century we might hit a point of no return because the oil and gas have enough money to keep themselves from going under due to climate change.
Still plenty of nature to kill before humanity cannot survive
I think there may be debate on this point. Climate change may be self perpetuating soon (if it isn’t already) due to thawing meant reserves, etc.
I’m not sure if anyone in the scientific mainstream thinks that’ll push the climate to a point where we can’t survive, but that probably depends on our behaviour over the next few decades.
But without the cool neon aesthetic. ☹️
Elon Musk is working on the cars though. They look like they’ll handle like the 2077 cars as well.
Could NOT get the nuclear power plant in Georgia off the ground for how long?
Did it ever get finished?
But when corporate wants it just fucking happens 🤡
Let me preface this that I’m not a huge fan of nuclear, but I do like factual information.
Could NOT get the nuclear power plant in Georgia off the ground for how long?
If you’re talking about Vogtle, it took about 13 years and 14 years. (two reactors)
Did it ever get finished?
Yes. If you want to be specific the original two reactors were finished in 2008. The new work was for the other two reactors. That’s what took 14 years. Of the two new reactors, one started providing commercial power for the first time in June of 2023. The second new reactor only started providing commercial power in Feb of 2024.
But when corporate wants it just fucking happens 🤡
Different type of power plants between what is being discussed for Google and what was put in at Vogtle in Georgia.
Vogtle was completing construction of an existing older design. Think of this like a bespoke tailored suit. It is crazy expensive, and only fits you.
What most of these tech companies are going for is called Small Modular Reactors (SMR). Think of this as like buying a ready-to-wear suit off the rack. Its not nearly as fancy or as impressive (usually much smaller power generation), but its not custom made so its much cheaper.
Corporations > people
Legal people are just better!
Shiti Organics are easily replaceable ;)
I’m still waiting for the cyberpunk part to happen
Businesses generating their own power is not anything new. The big auto manufacturers used to do it back in the day, and if you scale down the concept, every windmill (the grain grinding kind) and waterwheel built and operated for profit is the same thing. I’m just happy that Google is seemingly having their own built, instead of getting taxpayers to build it for them.
Yeah, if this is what it takes to get new design nuclear facilities in the US, then I’m counting it a win, but I won’t count it either way until the watts come out. Who knows: if they run ok, an actual power company might even try one.
We have a city to burn?
Give it time and the mega corps will do it for you.
Cyberpunk dystopias weren’t supposed to be guidelines dammit
So not replacing current energy, but adding onto it. Just like how we didn’t replace fossil fuels with the solar and wind unprecedented advancements the last 30 years but only added more energy consumption on top of that…cool
The other side of the coin is that AI currently uses more power than is produced by all renewables across the globe annually. So at least they’ll be offsetting that, which would be a net positive.
And it seems like Google’s funding will help advance safer and more modern nuclear plant designs, which is another win that could lead to replacing coal plants in many countries with small scale reactors that don’t run on uranium.
Yes it’s obviously better than using fossil fuels, nobody’s arguing that. What I’m talking about is the direction the global economy and the people making the decisions are taking.
No matter how much nuclear energy you use, you are still putting a lot of additional strain on the environment. It’s not just the CO2 emissions that matter, that’s just one of the problems. It’s the increase in extracted materials for data centers, reactors and nuclear fuel, which causes the destruction of multiple ecosystems and the contamination of waters and soil from the pollutants produced(even radioactive waste in the uranium case).
It’s also that Google could have been taxed more(I’m sure they can take it) and the money the government gained could be directed to investments on nuclear plants that would actually replace fossil fuels instead of adding energy demands on top of them. Because the fact of the matter is that in 2024 we categorically cannot be talking about not increasing fossil fuel consumption, we have to be talking about how to reduce emissions drastically every single year and why we are already tragically behind on that regard.
And it seems like Google’s funding will help advance safer and more modern nuclear plant designs
Hopefully.
But the cynic in me is always concerned when shareholder owned companies are operating something that has the potential to go very wrong very quickly if/when they cut too many corners in the pursuit of that extra 0.5% of profit.
For what it’s worth, many, maybe most (sorry, can’t be bothered to look up the stats right now) nuclear plants in the US are already owned by some publicly traded company beholden to its shareholders who expect it to turn an ever increasing profit for them.
Not that it gives me the warm-fuzzies that that’s the case, but it’s not quite as big of a departure from the current situation as you’re making it out to be.
It’s almost like our population has continued to increase for the last 30 years
It’s almost like you have no clue what you are talking about lol. The global population growth for the last 30 years is 50%, while the global GDP growth is 500%. Not only that but the wealth inequality in the world has been steadily rising for the last 60 years. In the US alone (that we have data on) the wealth of the bottom 80% has been roughly stagnant since the 1990s while that of the top 1% has skyrocketed - it’s basically them that have absorbed this economic growth profit.
So yeah, you got a lot of confidence in things you clearly don’t know about.
You weren’t talking about wealth, you said that our energy consumption continued to rise.
You have to understand that GDP and energy demands are intrinsically tied. That’s a fact, both theoretically and empirically verified with historical data. When the GDP rises, energy demands rise. And the reason why energy demands rise is not to meet people’s needs but because the 1% seek to increase GDP (through individual corporation stock values) which in turn increases their profits, since like I said they absorb all of it. That is why it is relevant, because it’s a matter of wealth accumulation by the 1%, not because people need more energy. That is backed both by the fact that the common people don’t get anything out of the increase in economic production(the bottom 80% like I’ve said have had a stagnant wealth since the 1990s in the US, although the global GDP has risen 5-fold, even though the population has risen and hence the people in that 80% has risen as well) and by the fact that the population increase has been just 50% and the increase in wealth ten times that.
The article mentions Kairos Power but doesn’t mention that their reactors in development are molten-salt cooled. While they’ll still use Uranium, its a great step in the right direction for safer nuclear power.
If development continues on this path with thorium molten-salt fueled and cooled reactors, we could see safe and commercially viable nuclear (thorium) energy within our lifetimes.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-06/china-building-thorium-nuclear-power-station-gobi/104304468
To my layman’s knowledge, using thorium molten-salt instead of uranium means the reactor can be designed in a way where it can’t melt down like Chernobyl or Fukushima.
Edit: The other implication of not using uranium is that the leftover material is harder to make in to bombs, so the technology around molten-salt thorium reactors could be spread to current non-nuclear states to meet their energy needs and reduce reliance on coal plants around the planet.
The meltdown that happened in Chernobyl happened because of mismanagement. Yes, there were design flaws in the system, but lots of rules had to be broken before the design flaws were triggered.
If development continues on this path
If we continue down the path of wasting energy and polluting to produce useless shit humanity is screwed.
There is a whole universe of resources and our needs for them will never be fully satisfied. Every step towards cleaner, more sustainable energy is a good one.
We fixed the glitch.
Those are the people that would sell your soul to the devil.
Will energy prices become negative when the AI bubble bursts?
No, EVs alone require 10 times the current installed energy production. We’re not even close. Expect energy rates to quadruple. The price will increase until people can’t afford the commute with their entire day’s paycheck.
EVs alone require 10 times the current installed energy production.
No they don’t.
The UK national grid estimates there needs to be a 4-5% increase each year, for roughly 15 years. That’s achievable.
The US won’t be too different.
Expect energy rates to quadruple
Why quadruple. Where are you getting this from?
The price will increase until people can’t afford the commute with their entire day’s paycheck.
They obviously won’t.
Fossil fuel power plants don’t count. EVs running of fossil fuel make no sense. Remove them from the equation and my prediction becomes extremely optimistic.
In what world don’t they count?
They can power EVs. And running an EV on fossil fuel electricity is still far less polluting than running a petrol or diesel car.
One large generator at its most efficient setting is far more efficient than tens of thousands of small ones starting from cold multiple times per day, that aren’t necessarily maintained well, and are constantly going through their rev range.
Where are your sources for any of what you’re saying?
EVs are currently running partially on fossil fuel just fine and generating less pollution than ICEs because power plant efficiency is still better than combustion engine efficiency.
Growing from a broad research effort at U.S. universities and national laboratories, Kairos Power was founded to accelerate the development of an innovative nuclear technology …
Kairos Power is focused on reducing technical risk through a novel approach to test iteration often lacking in the nuclear space. Our schedule is driven by the goal of a U.S. demonstration plant before 2030 and a rapid deployment thereafter. The challenge is great, but so too is the opportunity.
So basically academics finding people to fund a large scale lab experiment, they want to get working by 2030. It sounds like they sold Google on an idea (for funding) and now have to move their idea from the lab to the real world. It does sound safer than water cooled plants of old at least.
These are the small, buried reactors right? The ones that we tested on paper but haven’t gotten NRC/DOE to sign off on?
I know they are MSRs but still…
This is good news, relatively speaking.
SMR technology is one of the most promising pieces of technological development in the nuclear power space.
Standardized factory production and completely sealed, so refueling is only at the factory, never on-site. Their also, small, but scalable depending on the needs of each site.
I’m not sure of the design this company is using, but I’m assuming they’re leveraging a fail safe reactor, as in, it requires properly running systems to generate fission, but if those systems fail, the fission process stops. There are no secondary systems that have to kick in, it’s a simple as either it’s running properly, or it can’t run it all.
As opposed to systems like Chernobyl, or 3 Mile Island, that required separate active safety systems to guard against catastrophic failures. But if those failed, they’re backups failed, etc., well, meltdown.
This makes it sounds like Google is building their own nuclear plants
Nope, they have a partner that’s doing that and the partner is going to be providing small modular reactors. Although we are not sure according to the article whether Google is going to be running them directly to their data centers or whether they are going to be providing energy to homes and buying renewable energy credits or something. Either way, small modular reactors should bring down the price of nuclear.
yeah, like cars are cheaper than buses
What could go wrong?
They will suddenly stop supporting them after a few years
Emergency shutdown link hidden behind UI menu after UI menu and constantly changing locations weekly.
So um. What happens when the white supremacists attacking FEMA and electrical grids starts attacking these nuclear reactors?
There are already existing nuclear reactors. Why would these new ones be any different in regards to their ability to be attacked?
Privately owned, smaller, more locations, more news coverage
I guess I expect the national energy commission to still regulate the plant to ensure safety standards are the same between public and private.
