Interesting as old nuclear plants are always said to be expensive to operate due to maintenance and old technology issues. Microsoft must really be in a bind to go for an expensive and uncertain supply.
Advanced bayesian estimations show that the risks of a nuclear plant that is not yet operational are very low. And the chance that they will still be employed at microsoft (after the bubble pops) by 2028 is exceedingly low, reducing effective risk significantly !
I was thinking of the economics as opposed to the safety aspects. Seems an expensive option.
Nuclear power has fairly predictable amortized returns. I imagine that this is worth the cost to MS over the next two decades or so; we have no idea what their current energy premium is like, and this plant doesn’t have to be as cheap as a new plant, just cheaper than the current premium.
If it was cheaper than the current premium, I expect that the plant would still be in operation, however as I don’t know the numbers so it must be worthwhile.
Constellation Energy shut down the Unit 1 reactor in 2019 — not the one that melted down in 1979, the other one — because it wasn’t economical. Inflation Reduction Act tax breaks made it viable again
almost like it was literally in the article
I assume this is pr to distract from their increasing use of fossil fuels
Yeah but Three Mile Island? Seriously?
Now it’s possible that the MSFT press release gave it a more anodyne name and the press sussed out where it was, but still.
Well, it’s a hell of a distraction!
Augh, augh, I’m starting to sound like one of those conspiracy nuts who think Beyoncé times her album releases to distract people from what the illuminati are getting up to. Time to stop…
“We’re restarting the Three Mile island reactor and renaming it! [pause for effect] to Copilot!”
And instead of replacing fossil fuels, we’re using it to power the AI pet projects of billionaires…
I hear they actually are planning to build a new campus there. They think they’ll create supersmart mutants to build their next gen AIs
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my least favorite thing about nuclear power is the reply guys
i saw it in my email and thought “did he fucking read it” and looking through his history, he absolutely didn’t
lemmy-flavored redditors: uhm I came here expecting some nuance
also lemmy-flavored redditors: nuclear power plants opening is always good, why would I care that the companies doing it have a history of ignoring regulations, are treating nuclear engineering as loosely as software engineering, and are generating vast amounts of power just to chase an awful fucking fad and explicitly not to power houses or any worthwhile infrastructure? what do you mean read the article? why would I ever do that?
SimCity infrastructure plans
Disasters->Basilisk
There’s a specific kind of online commentator that’s a carrier of the meme that the public turn against nuclear power was the final nail in the coffin for Western civilization. I don’t have any proof of this, other than cultural. Nuke fondlers tend to be culturally and politically conservative, generally with engineering or science degrees, and seem to pine for the idealized 50s so present in tradwife media nowadays (although nuke love precedes that by decades).
Opposition to nuclear power was sort of a death knell for the ideal of the technocrat.
Now of course nuke enthusiasts tend to be libertarians too, and they run smack into the fact that nuclear is really capital-intensive and expensive to insure. Thus the pipe dream of the inherently safe “container reactor”.
Sweden’s current gov is driven a lot by opposition to all things Green (both the party and the ideas) and pushed for the construction of 10 new reactors. It turns out that the industry has been burned by vacillating govs before and required hard financial guarantees, as well as a iron-clad price floor for electricity, to commit. So the pitch to the public would be: there’s no way you can lower your per-unit power cost for 30 years, and in return you get 10 items widely perceived as ugly and dangerous.
Nuclear at least doesn’t pump out CO2, so a lotta people who aren’t like you describe consider it worth considering. 850MW of nuclear is better than 850MW of gas on this scale.
But the economics just completely fuck it. TMI unit 1 shut down cos it couldn’t compete economically and only an IRA tax break makes it even plausible.
There’s a big thing in Australia at the moment where the LNP, beholden to some donor or other, is pushing economically nonviable nuclear hard. And even a lotta the green side is saying “nice idea, now make the numbers work in this universe.”
But the economics just completely fuck it. TMI unit 1 shut down cos it couldn’t compete economically and only an IRA tax break makes it even plausible.
This is really a problem with deregulated energy markets. Since deregulation we’ve had huge boom/bust cycles in energy that has caused any major long-term capital investment to be a waste. Instead we get more and more fracking and more and more “simple/cheap” methane plants.
This also affects other major capital-intensive green energy projects like offshore wind.
The fact that methane can be fracked out of the ground by wildcatters and pumped through small generating facilities makes it the best fuel for a speculation-driven market.
as well as a iron-clad price floor for electricity
Lol isn’t the main cool thing of having a nuclear plant low electricity costs, why the fuck would you agree to that
Let’s increase the supply but also add a price floor to reap none of the benefits, genius economics
Gotem coach
This feels like the start of an Outer Limits episode.
Yeah, this is gonna turn out well. What could possibly go wrong connecting an AI to a nuclear reactor in a populated area?
do tell
Terminator 2 but with Fallout 2 style super mutants.
