6 ms·

It seems the article forgot to mention that Microsoft is actively pursuing nuclear energy in response, which is a significant omission.

by Reptur 2y ago

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
listless 2y ago
Would be interesting if one of the major benefits of AI is it pushing us to clean energy
- ffhhj 2y ago
  Clean energy until waste is hidden under the carpet for thousands of years.
  - astrange 2y ago
    Even regular landfills are very much not a problem. Nuclear waste is much less of a problem than that.
  - N0b8ez 2y ago
    Is inside an abandoned salt mine really the same as "under the carpet"? I don't see what scenario people have in mind when they're worried about nuclear waste storage.
  - Mawr 2y ago
    Sure, we may be heading right into a massive climate crisis in the next few decades, but what about the hypothetical post-humans who will dig up spent nuclear fuel 10_000 years from now?!
    - Andrex 2y ago
      Transportation and storage are still issues we have to deal with today, though. There was definitely a window, maybe fifty years ago, where widespread adoption of nuclear energy would have stopped and reversed climate change. We may have had an increase in Chernobyls with the proliferation of non-modern reactor designs, but in this hypothetical reality maybe people would have been OK with that. The problem today is that renewables are getting too cheap and too good, and the storage problem shrinks every day. Meanwhile, it takes upwards of a decade to license and build a single reactor. France's fancy new reactors won't be online until 2040. Nuclear is just too slow. I feel like 10 years from now it won't even be a debate or a contest, nuclear will just be the most expensive option by a country mile. Greenhouse gases will peak within the next 2 years[0]. The nuclear lobby missed their chance, which does mean we'll have to deal with some effects of climate change we could have avoided. My feeling right now (and I kinda flip-flop every few years) is that nuclear lost and it's economically infeasible to try again. Change my mind? 0. https://climateanalytics.org/publications/when-will-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-peak https://climateanalytics.org/publications/when-will-global-g...
      - Moldoteck 2y ago
        Question is, why it's so slow for nuclear when China usually finishes a project within 6-7 years
      - ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
        SpaceX Dragon Hazmat Capsule
  - Moldoteck 2y ago
    Do you realize it can be reprocessed yes? It's not like we don't know how to deal with it, there are both working reprocessing plants and breeding reactors for it. Only about 5% of it is actual waste and it's dangerous for much less that 10k years and can be solidified if needed...
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
  Amazon already have a datacenter with an attached nuclear power plant, and Microsoft have contracted with Helion for future delivery of a fusion power plant (assuming it materializes). https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpowered-data-center-from-talen/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpow... Zuckerberg says part of the problem is not just the amount of power needed for a SOTA AI-training datacenter (~1GW), but the fact that you need the power at that particular location which makes co-locating a power plant the best option. The biggest solar power plants in China put out over 2GW, but the biggest in the US is Solar Star in CA, wihch occupies 12 km^2 and only puts out 58MW.
  - Syonyk 2y ago
    Where are you getting your information? There are many solar plants in US well in excess of 58MW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Mountain_Solar_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Mountain_Solar_Facility is one, at 800MW. It was at 58MW in 2010... which might confuse a LLM, though.
    - IggleSniggle 2y ago
      Thank god for comments like this. I find it truly disturbing how much people are treating LLMs like fact-machines. They are pattern matching machines that match using whatever information they have that matches best. It's closer to improv jazz than to factual authority; still super wonderful, and worthwhile listening to, but not really for the purpose of learning how the original sounded when it was first recorded. Sure, you might get a sense of the original, but that's all it is: an impression. When you ask for facts, you get an impressionist render of facts, which sometimes, maybe even often times, accurately depict the Truth. But sometimes they depict the Truth the way an artist depicts the truth: if it feels right, it's right.
      - kolinko 2y ago
        I think the 58MW claim is so blatantly wrong that it’s not LLM that produced that „fact”. I discussed various climate related things with chatgpt and it doesn’t make such crazy mistakes.

It seems the article forgot to mention that Microsoft is actively pursuing nuclear energy in response, which is a significant omission.

by Reptur 2y ago

It seems the article forgot to mention that Microsoft is actively pursuing nuclear energy in response, which is a significant omission.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

listless 2y ago

Would be interesting if one of the major benefits of AI is it pushing us to clean energy

ffhhj 2y ago
Clean energy until waste is hidden under the carpet for thousands of years.
- astrange 2y ago
  Even regular landfills are very much not a problem. Nuclear waste is much less of a problem than that.
- N0b8ez 2y ago
  Is inside an abandoned salt mine really the same as "under the carpet"? I don't see what scenario people have in mind when they're worried about nuclear waste storage.
- Mawr 2y ago
  Sure, we may be heading right into a massive climate crisis in the next few decades, but what about the hypothetical post-humans who will dig up spent nuclear fuel 10_000 years from now?!
  - Andrex 2y ago
    Transportation and storage are still issues we have to deal with today, though. There was definitely a window, maybe fifty years ago, where widespread adoption of nuclear energy would have stopped and reversed climate change. We may have had an increase in Chernobyls with the proliferation of non-modern reactor designs, but in this hypothetical reality maybe people would have been OK with that. The problem today is that renewables are getting too cheap and too good, and the storage problem shrinks every day. Meanwhile, it takes upwards of a decade to license and build a single reactor. France's fancy new reactors won't be online until 2040. Nuclear is just too slow. I feel like 10 years from now it won't even be a debate or a contest, nuclear will just be the most expensive option by a country mile. Greenhouse gases will peak within the next 2 years[0]. The nuclear lobby missed their chance, which does mean we'll have to deal with some effects of climate change we could have avoided. My feeling right now (and I kinda flip-flop every few years) is that nuclear lost and it's economically infeasible to try again. Change my mind? 0. https://climateanalytics.org/publications/when-will-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-peak https://climateanalytics.org/publications/when-will-global-g...
    - Moldoteck 2y ago
      Question is, why it's so slow for nuclear when China usually finishes a project within 6-7 years
    - ikekkdcjkfke 2y ago
      SpaceX Dragon Hazmat Capsule
- Moldoteck 2y ago
  Do you realize it can be reprocessed yes? It's not like we don't know how to deal with it, there are both working reprocessing plants and breeding reactors for it. Only about 5% of it is actual waste and it's dangerous for much less that 10k years and can be solidified if needed...
HarHarVeryFunny 2y ago
Amazon already have a datacenter with an attached nuclear power plant, and Microsoft have contracted with Helion for future delivery of a fusion power plant (assuming it materializes). https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpowered-data-center-from-talen/ https://www.ans.org/news/article-5842/amazon-buys-nuclearpow... Zuckerberg says part of the problem is not just the amount of power needed for a SOTA AI-training datacenter (~1GW), but the fact that you need the power at that particular location which makes co-locating a power plant the best option. The biggest solar power plants in China put out over 2GW, but the biggest in the US is Solar Star in CA, wihch occupies 12 km^2 and only puts out 58MW.
- Syonyk 2y ago
  Where are you getting your information? There are many solar plants in US well in excess of 58MW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Mountain_Solar_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Mountain_Solar_Facility is one, at 800MW. It was at 58MW in 2010... which might confuse a LLM, though.
  - IggleSniggle 2y ago
    Thank god for comments like this. I find it truly disturbing how much people are treating LLMs like fact-machines. They are pattern matching machines that match using whatever information they have that matches best. It's closer to improv jazz than to factual authority; still super wonderful, and worthwhile listening to, but not really for the purpose of learning how the original sounded when it was first recorded. Sure, you might get a sense of the original, but that's all it is: an impression. When you ask for facts, you get an impressionist render of facts, which sometimes, maybe even often times, accurately depict the Truth. But sometimes they depict the Truth the way an artist depicts the truth: if it feels right, it's right.
    - kolinko 2y ago
      I think the 58MW claim is so blatantly wrong that it’s not LLM that produced that „fact”. I discussed various climate related things with chatgpt and it doesn’t make such crazy mistakes.