“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity” ~llaw
Dec 30, 2024
The infamous Three Mile Island nuclear power plant that prompted me to leave the industry
LLAW’s NUCLEAR WORLD NEWS TODAY AND THE RISKS & CONSEQUENCES OF TOMORROW
How we can continue to represent that nuclear power fuel (uranium) produces clean power for human consumption boggles the mind of anyone who knows anything about “all things nuclear”. The stuff is, without doubt, the dirtiest and most dangerous power-producing fuel of any kind on planet Earth, and nuclear power plants themselves are also likely targets in any global conflict that will have the unique ability to eliminate human and other species of life from existence. All one has to do is understand this duplicitous contradiction is to follow the Russia/Ukraine war . . .
We are deathly afraid of nuclear weapons of mass destruction (nuclear bombs), but we are in love with the world-wide concept of nuclear power plants — that are nothing less than stationary nuclear bombs — and their mission to help create the very scary idea of a new kind of a robotic controlled human world with something called “Artificial Intelligence” (AI). ~llaw
Here’s what our nuclear/AI world is projected to be all about from “Business Insider”:
Big Tech’s AI bets are driving a nuclear renaissance. Not everyone is buying the hype.
Riddhi Kanetkar and Hasan Chowdhury
Dec 30, 2024, 12:30 AM PST
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- Big Tech is investing in nuclear power to meet AI data-center energy demands.
- Nuclear is seen as a clean-energy source, but investors are skeptical about scalability and returns.
- While VC interest in nuclear investment is growing, startups face key bottlenecks.
The generative AI boom has made nuclear power a major new obsession for Big Tech. Some industry watchers aren’t fully convinced that it should be — or that nuclear startups will be able to capitalize on the hype.
This year, companies at the forefront of AI development have been in a frenzy over nuclear power as they’ve searched for clean sources of electricity to run the energy-hungry data centers being built to serve their prized AI models.
Microsoft made a stunning move in September when it struck a 20-year power-purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to awaken one of two dormant nuclear plants on Three Mile Island — the site of one of the most high-profile nuclear accidents in US history.
In October, Amazon took a stake in X-energy, a developer of small modular reactors, or SMRs, which promise greater efficiency than large nuclear reactors. That same month, Google announced a clean-energy agreement with Kairos Power, a company developing SMRs.
These deals have emerged at speed for a simple reason: An arms race in the tech sector between companies vying for control of the most powerful AI models is set to drive data-center power demand through the roof, with Goldman Sachs estimating a 160% jump by 2030.
However, while Big Tech’s ambitions to build the world’s most potent AI models have invigorated their interest in nuclear power, investors, energy experts, and analysts are feeling split about whether it will help startups scale at pace and deliver fruitful returns.
Why nuclear might not be a quick-fix solution
Skeptics say nuclear reactors won’t come online quickly enough or at the scale needed to meet the demands of energy-hungry data centers.
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Meta starts the search for nuclear partners to power energy-hungry AI
Jill McArdle, a campaigner at the European nonprofit Beyond Fossil Fuels, told Business Insider that nuclear power is “completely off topic” as a current solution for powering data centers, particularly if tech companies are serious about the looming deadlines they’ve set to meet emissions targets.
Google aims to achieve net-zero emissions across all of its operations by 2030. Microsoft, meanwhile, has committed to being carbon-negative by 2030. “What we are talking about, especially now, is the next five years of how are we going to power this massive boom in data centers,” McArdle said.
She added that the more compact SMRs favored by Big Tech remain largely untested. Google’s corporate agreement with Kairos Power, for instance, is expected to see the startup’s first SMR come online by 2030, with others added through to 2035.
One concern around large nuclear solutions is expense, with the likes of Microsoft’s Three Mile Island deal unlikely to be replicated elsewhere. As McArdle put it: “Traditional nuclear just isn’t going to be coming online at the scale and in the budget that we need to get it done.”
Venture capitalists have echoed this concern.
“The length of the investment is not compatible with private-equity funds — maybe it’s one for evergreen funds,” said Guillaume Sarlat, a partner at the France-headquartered VC firm Axeleo Capital, which has deliberately excluded nuclear from its investment policy. “The other problem is, what are the economic conditions going to be when nuclear startups are ready to sell their product? What is going to be the cost of the electricity that they’re going to produce in 20 years?”
He speculated that funds backing nuclear could aim for an internal rate of return of 15%, but the two main parameters to determine that would be productivity gains and the competitiveness of the nuclear solution. He said these factors could be affected by the price of gas and photovoltaic materials, making it a risky bet.
Startups face key bottlenecks
On the technical side, nuclear startups will have to work hard to differentiate themselves from existing fission technologies and “persuade investors that that marginal improvement is worth waiting another 10 years,” Matthew Blain, a principal at the climate tech fund Voyager Ventures, said.
While Blain has seen “excitement” for nuclear-fusion technology, he said these startups would first need to demonstrate a believable pathway down the cost curve. “Your first dollars per megawatt of your first fusion plant will be astronomically expensive, and that will be competing on a 20- to 30-year timeframe with the cost of energy and battery storage,” he told BI.
It’s part of the reason investment in nuclear-energy startups has fluctuated over the past five years. The industry had a banner year in 2021, with startups raking in $3.57 billion in VC funding, per PitchBook data. Figures subsequently dipped in 2022 and 2023, with VCs pouring $2.67 billion and $1.17 billion into startups, respectively.
“Nuclear energy requires a centralized infrastructure that is harder to scale incrementally,” Nicolas Heuzé, the cofounder and CEO of the osmotic-energy startup Sweetch Energy, said. “And investors and governments often favor proven solutions, even though they are not perfect, over novel ones associated with emerging technology.”
The case for being bullish on nuclear
Despite the concerns, certain quarters of the tech sector remain convinced that nuclear is the way forward to support the AI data-center boom.
A16z, the venture-capital firm led by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, named “the resurgence of nuclear” as one of the big ideas driving its “American dynamism” investment theme in 2025.
“A perfect storm of regulatory reform, public enthusiasm, capital infusions, and insatiable energy needs — particularly from AI data centers — will accelerate orders for new reactors for the first time in decades,” is how David Ulevitch, a general partner at A16z, put it.
A few things still need to be figured out. Blain said that VCs will need to see if there’s profit to be made on a technology that may offer “more of an infrastructure return” typically made through debt investments than the kind of outsize return a VC typically seeks from a bet on a software business. Nuclear startups may also opt to “take the trajectory of companies like SpaceX by staying private for a long period of time,” he said.
That said, it’s clear that money is flowing into the industry again, as VCs have deployed $2.62 billion into nuclear startups this year. Notable raises included X Energy’s $500 million round and the $151 million raised by Paris-headquartered Newcleo, which is building SMRs using repurposed radioactive waste.
Newcleo’s COO, Elisabeth Rizzotti, told BI that a Big Tech-fueled boom in demand for clean energy had made it an “attractive” option for investors. She added that the startup was potentially eyeing an IPO once it met two key milestones: building its first prototype in 2026 and getting pre-authorization to build its first reactor in France by early 2027.
Companies trying to sell the world on nuclear power will have to accept a hard reality, however: The clock’s ticking on their opportunity to prove their solutions can meet the extraordinary energy demands of the AI industry. The data centers will keep on coming.
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TODAY’s NUCLEAR WORLD’s NEWS, Monday, (12/30/2024)
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
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In 2024, artificial intelligence was all about putting AI tools to work – The Wilton Bulletin
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Jimmy Carter to be honored with a state funeral before being buried next to Rosalynn – NPR
NPR
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Nuclear power had a strong year in 2024, but uncertainty looms for 2025
Canary Media
There’s more government, industry, and civilian support for nuclear energy than there has been in decades. There aren’t enough retired nuclear plants …
Big Tech’s AI bets are driving a nuclear renaissance. Not everyone is buying the hype.
Business Insider
Big Tech is investing in nuclear power to meet AI data center energy demands. · Nuclear is seen as a clean energy source, but investors are skeptical …
False map shows Germany surrounded by nuclear power plants – Euronews
Euronews
This map from Nucleareurope, a Brussels-based trade association for the nuclear energy industry, shows that there are some plants situated in …
Nuclear Power Emergencies
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Nineteen Hunterston A emergency exercises on site in 2024 – Irvine Times
Irvine Times
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Pakistan to get its largest nuclear plant after atomic energy body gets licence
Deccan Herald
… nuclear safety, radiation protection, emergency preparedness, waste management, and nuclear security, the Dawn newspaper reported. After a …
Nuclear War
NEWS
Why South Korea Should Go Nuclear – Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs
… nuclear threat at bay. Pyongyang began taking fitful steps toward a nuclear weapon during the Cold War, tested its first bomb in 2006, and today …
Arms control is essential to prevent the total devastation of nuclear war – Taipei Times
Taipei Times
November next year is to mark 40 years since then-US president Ronald Reagan and then-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev declared that “a nuclear war …
2024: A look back at a year of war and upheaval in the Middle East – France 24
France 24
Alongside the relentless bombing of Gaza, Israel expanded operations into Lebanon to target Hamas ally Hezbollah, whose militants have fired hundreds …
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
Why South Korea Should Go Nuclear – Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs
… nuclear threats against its southern neighbor. Seoul … War, when the Soviet Union threatened nuclear strikes against the U.S. mainland.
Russia is preparing to deploy missiles with nuclear warheads that can strike from 500 to 5500 km
ТСН
Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are trying to infiltrate Ukraine: the State Border Guard Service reports whether there is a threat.
The Case Against South Korea Building Nuclear Weapons – 19FortyFive
19FortyFive
… threats posed by North Korea and China … The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, underscoring the dangers of …