16 ms·

Google to back three new nuclear projects

291 points by aburan28 1y ago

perihelions 1y ago
Here's a better article: https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/07/google_signs_another_nuclear_deal/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/07/google_signs_another_... > "Elementl didn't respond to questions by press time. Its public materials offer little clarity on its actual operations—aside from broad claims about providing "turn-key project development, financing and ownership solutions customized to meet our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit." > "The nuclear developer, founded in 2022, presents itself as a facilitator of advanced reactor projects. But it has not built any reactors to date and describes itself as a "technology-agnostic nuclear power developer and independent power producer," signaling it does not back any specific reactor design." > "This approach aligns with the background of Elementl's CEO and chairman, Christopher Colbert, who previously served as CFO, COO, and chief strategy officer at NuScale Power."
- ertgbnm 1y ago
  > "meet our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit." Holy corporate jargon batman! I love seeing example of phrases like this out in the wild. Stating this implies that minimizing risks and maximizing benefit is not a need of most customers? IMO, it's better not to say stuff like that at all. It's basically a meaningless phrase, it adds no information to the sentence. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's generally a sign that they are doing the opposite of whatever the phrase means.
  - conception 1y ago
    Corporate equivalent of using a larger font and/or double spacing your term papers.
    - moffkalast 1y ago
      Corporate equivalent of acting like a douchebag who constantly makes up imaginary stories about how cool they are to distract from them being a complete loser.
  - kayodelycaon 1y ago
    > Stating this implies that minimizing risks and maximizing benefit is not a need of most customers? I believe this should have meaning. It would mean risk mitigation is a primary objective of the company. And not every company decides to consider risk mitigation as a primary objective. The problem is that risk mitigation is a long term objective. Who has time for that?
  - libraryatnight 1y ago
    "We will appear to meet standards while extracting maximum profit"
  - dkarl 1y ago
    > Stating this implies that minimizing risks and maximizing benefit is not a need of most customers? Honestly, I'd rather them explicitly commit to minimizing risks than say, "We're going to address the needs of our customers, and that probably includes minimizing risks, at least in most cases, right? Product will let us know when they've done the research." It's better that they say these things than that they don't say them. The real problem is not that they say them, but that we can't be confident they'll live up to them.
  - rdtsc 1y ago
    >> "meet our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit." > I love seeing example of phrases like this out in the wild I can image that's the stuff kids would say when asked why is the candy bowl suddenly empty: "Well, you see, we were was just meeting our needs while mitigating risk and maximizing benefit".
  - ethbr1 1y ago
    'We at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy and NIKIET feel that the RBMK reactor design meets our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit.'
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > Stating this implies that minimizing risks and maximizing benefit is not a need of most customers? It’s not, at least for nuclear power. In Europe, for example, the debate is entirely emotional. So saying they’re working for a rational customer is sort of meaningful, even if corporate speakified.
- agos 1y ago
  this sounds like one of those Google PR moments where they desperately try to paint themselves as the good guys. Remember when they announced contact lenses to help people with diabetes? Maybe this is related to the talk about splitting Google that's going around these days?
  - doublerabbit 1y ago
    You mean White Washing? How dare to think Google would think of such a thing. They're not evil after-all.
  - neuronexmachina 1y ago
    > Remember when they announced contact lenses to help people with diabetes? For anyone curious about what happened with that: https://web.archive.org/web/20181117031510/https://blog.verily.com/2018/11/update-on-our-smart-lens-program-with.html https://web.archive.org/web/20181117031510/https://blog.veri... > Our clinical work on the glucose-sensing lens demonstrated that there was insufficient consistency in our measurements of the correlation between tear glucose and blood glucose concentrations to support the requirements of a medical device. In part, this was associated with the challenges of obtaining reliable tear glucose readings in the complex on-eye environment. For example, we found that interference from biomolecules in tears resulted in challenges in obtaining accurate glucose readings from the small quantities of glucose in the tear film. In addition, our clinical studies have demonstrated challenges in achieving the steady state conditions necessary for reliable tear glucose readings.
  - foota 1y ago
    It seems like these news articles about XYZ superscaler announce agreement to purchase power from nuclear startup come up every few months. My assumption is that there's very little needed from Google et al to sign these agreements, and the upside is very cheap power if the startup miraculously pulls it off, so they might as well.
  - rockemsockem 1y ago
    You don't think Google is interested in getting more energy for less money?
- epistasis 1y ago
  I'm not sure if nuclear has always been a field where charlatans proliferate, but it's certainly true of the past few decades. The Summer plant in South Carolina was completely fraudulent, sending the power executives to jail for their fraud. Billions spent and nothing to show except a hole in the ground. Vogtle was slightly better in that they powered through to construction completion so that nobody cared about the deception and grift that resulted in a cost 3x that of estimates. The startups have been bad too, with some disingenuously starting regulatory processes and then not even responding to questions or attempting to follow through. South Koreas is the most developed nation that has had success building, and even they send people to jail for construction fraud. There are undoubtedly many honest and earnest people trying to build new nuclear. But it's hard to tell who until after billions have been sunk and misallocated.
  - cyberax 1y ago
    > South Koreas is the most developed nation that has had success building, and even they send people to jail for construction fraud. That's why :) Russia is also fairly successful at building reactors. Although, somehow their orders pipeline has been getting shorter and shorter (wonder why...).
  - Workaccount2 1y ago
    It's likely because the NRC is the most insanely regulatory body of the US government. Ostensibly, this is a good thing, nuclear power, meltdowns, radioactive waste, etc. But really I cannot emphasize enough how strict and overbearing they are. "Oh that 12V backup battery pack needs to be replaced? Better get the same one from the same manufacturer" "They aren't in business anymore but we have this 12V battery the fits perfectly, same specs" "Nope, not certified with that system. You can start recertification that will cost ~$40M if you like" "...." There is so much ass covering and not wanting to take responsibility that the market is basically in paralysis.
    - nolist_policy 1y ago
      Do you have a source?
- Animats 1y ago
  Oh, it's the NuScale guy again. NuScale got far enough to get approval to build a test reactor at the Idaho Reactor Testing Station, which is in Outer Nowhere for good reasons. But they never got enough funding to build it. The trouble with most of these small modular reactor schemes is that their big pitch is mostly "we don't need a big, strong, containment vessel because ... reasons." There's no inherent problem in building a small nuclear reactor. Here's one from 1957, near Oakland, CA.[1] It's safety if something goes badly wrong that's a problem. History: - Chernobyl - meltdown and fire, no containment vessel, major disaster. - Fukushima - meltdown, too-small containment vessel, large disaster. - Three Mile Island - meltdown, big strong containment vessel, plant lost but no disaster. Alternative reactor history: - Fort St. Vrain - high temperature gas-cooled, subject to helium plumbing leaks in radioactive zone, shut down and plant converted to natural gas. - AVR reactor, Germany - pebble bed reactor, had pebble jam, had to be shut down, extremely difficult to decommission. - Sodium reactors - prone to fires.[3] - Molten salt reactors [4] - require an attached chemical plant that reprocesses radioactive molten salt. Most of the problems of nuclear reactors in practice involve plumbing. Everything in the radioactive zone has to last half a century or so without maintenance. That's possible with distilled water as the working fluid, but everything else tried has not worked well. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1O8xAB_FDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1O8xAB_FDI [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor [3] https://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/research/technical-papers-and-articles/2019/overview-of-liquid-sodium-fires/ https://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/research/techn... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor
  - concordDance 1y ago
    > Fukushima - meltdown, too-small containment vessel, large disaster. Probably overselling the "large" there... at least on the scale of global power production.
    - lostlogin 1y ago
      You wouldn’t call Fukushima a large disaster? The financial cost is at $180 billion US. That seems large.
- os2warpman 1y ago
  >Elementl Missing vowels + no plan + a leadership team stacked with MBAs, investment bankers, and FAMILY MEMBERS?!?= bullshit private equity "play". Let me predict what is going to happen: a team of connected "playaz" are going to get real companies with cash and the government to give them money to shake up the nuclear market. Then the leadership team is going to hire a token staff of scientists, engineers, and public policy folks. They are going to have a groundbreaking ceremony for a facility (not a reactor, like an R&D facility or "rapid innovation incubator" or something) that is highly publicized and subsidized by state and local business development grants and credits but will either never be finished or never fully staffed. Nothing will happen for four years until they either fade out of existence or declare defeat due to "regulatory and market conditions" with nothing to show but some powerpoints and press releases. The hundreds of millions of dollars that flowed into the organization is never spoken of or seen again. Then a couple of years later they'll register another .io domain with missing vowels and start all over again.
melling 1y ago
Do the “no nuclear, renewables are the future” people have any comments? We burned a few decades saying solar and wind are the solution. This set us back greatly in the struggle to reduce greenhouse emissions.
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  20 years ago nuclear was the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushed solar & wind as a distraction. Today solar & wind are the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushes nuclear as a distraction.
  - adventured 1y ago
    Replacement isn't remotely close to good enough. We need a massive increase in the supply of energy. Nuclear is the only viable path for that. We can do more than one thing at a time, we have the resources.
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      Yes, we need a massive increase in the supply of energy. Solar is the only way we're going to get it. We're adding solar at a 1TW / year rate. We're adding nuclear at a rate of ~30 GW / year.
      - SoftTalker 1y ago
        So why is Microsoft spending billions to restart three mile island rather than just installing some solar panels?
        ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        Because with IRA massively lowering the costs restarting a plant might actually be feasible. The problem is that new built nuclear power costs tens of billions.
bee_rider 1y ago
Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across its operations and value chain, […] Man, I remember when 2030 seemed like the future. But now it seems downright aggressive. Good luck Google.
- melling 1y ago
  US Net Zero is 2050. With 25 years remaining, I think shooting for 2030 seems reasonable. We’ve just about hit peak coal. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/18/coal-use-to-reach-new-peak-and-remain-at-near-record-levels-for-years https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/18/coal-use-to...
  - titzer 1y ago
    > The world’s coal use is expected to reach a fresh high of 8.7bn tonnes this year, and remain at near-record levels for years as a result of a global gas crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Not sure that counts as "just about hit peak coal".
- rcpt 1y ago
  Renewables are only easy if you ignore regulations. For whatever stupid reason local busybodies lose their shit about windmills regularly and they are frustratingly hard to ignore.
  - worldsayshi 1y ago
    Doesn't revenue sharing often turn those frowns upside down? More inclusive business models might help?
    - tough 1y ago
bpodgursky 1y ago
Every compute company knows that power shortage is a looming crisis. They don't have nuclear expertise in-house and are desperately looking for somewhere to put their money that seems to have experience and capability This is a good thing, but will be fruitless unless the US NRC modernizes in parallel with the industry to actually approve a new reactor in less than geologic time.
- delusional 1y ago
  Ignoring AI (don't @ me) what are we doing with all that compute? Google (the search engine) hasn't meaningfully changed. Shopping is still largely the same as when Amazon first started out. Websites are pretty much the same. I don't understand what we're doing with all those operations. I guess VOD is new, but does that really demand that amount of compute?
  - rockemsockem 1y ago
    More people and more companies engaging in digital services which are backed by Google cloud or another cloud?
- philipkglass 1y ago
  The NRC isn't the bottleneck. For the recently completed Vogtle Unit 3 reactor, construction work and permitting work ran in tandem. Early construction work started in 2009 and all NRC approvals were completed by 2012. Neither NRC regulations nor lawsuits ever halted construction. Vogtle 3 was originally supposed to be ready in 2016. It suffered enormous cost overruns and delays due to the companies actually building it before finally entering service in 2023. https://www.powermag.com/vogtle-3-reaches-initial-criticality-marking-pivotal-nuclear-startup-milestone/ https://www.powermag.com/vogtle-3-reaches-initial-criticalit... The identical AP1000 reactors under construction at VC Summer in South Carolina also suffered enormous cost overruns and delays, again not caused by the NRC or lawsuits. The construction problems were so severe at the VC Summer project that the project halted after spending over $9 billion, it led to the largest business failure in the history of South Carolina, and a couple of company executives went to prison for securities fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal
dfilppi 1y ago
Nuclear (hopefully fusion at some point) is the only plausible way to meet energy needs in the future (that we currently know of). Fear of nuclear waste isn't irrational, but highly overblown because catastrophic events are more emotionally compelling than the slow degradation of either living standards and/or environment caused by competing technology.
- doublerabbit 1y ago
  What happens in such case were a reactor was to blow. What then? Or are you saying we just deal with it when it occurs? I am not fully detesting nuclear, but I do disagree it a cure to the environment crisis as Solar is plenty and free; as are Wind and Water too. The risks of what if; and that now we live in such a volatile world. How are you going to convince me it's safe? How do I know a drone won't strike it in the next war? Some sponsored hack? Stuxnet was an organised hack that was created to aid destruction to nuclear hardware. Chernobyl is still unsafe and that's many years ago and was recently damaged again by a drone.
  - XorNot 1y ago
    Nuclear reactors do not surprise explode. The Chinese designs are passively safe: cut off all power and they'll simply sit there. They do not require active cooling. The Gen 4 designs, which they also have, are physics safe: literally drop bombs on them and they still won't fail (bombing a nuclear plant in general is an over stated risk for other reasons too). They're building those now too.
    - doublerabbit 1y ago
      Hacks, cyber espionage? So it sounds like the view point of "deal with it when it happens then" and that's what puts me off nuclear. Nuclear is too unstable when something does occur to be contained and as to when dismantled.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
dhruv3006 1y ago
Woooah! Times are changing.
floxy 1y ago
I suppose like anything there are multiple reasons, but what are the top 3 why California electric rates are so high (compared to the rest of the U.S.)? https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/ https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/ Why doesn't the state encourage more capacity to bring costs down? (to encourage electrification/EVs, etc.) Is it because they are phasing out natural gas? Is it to encourage roof top solar? Or trying to reduce consumption by having high prices? Or environmental permitting? "Lobbying" by entrenched incumbents? Or maybe the high price is due to taxes and not the price of generation?
- neural_thing 1y ago
  It's because the California government doesn't believe in markets, prices as incentives or anything like that. California govt believes in state mandates
  - lern_too_spel 1y ago
    California famously deregulated its electricity market at the end of the 20th century, becoming the first state to do so. https://paylesspower.com/blog/deregulated-energy-states/ https://paylesspower.com/blog/deregulated-energy-states/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%932001_California_electricity_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%932001_California_e...
    - ryan93 1y ago
      Wow no regulations in California. First I’m hearing of this
      - jppittma 1y ago
        Can we get an updated opinion in light of the facts being the exact reverse opposite of the initial hypothesis?
        1y ago
muth02446 1y ago
I view nuclear as a prudent diversification of energy sources: What happens if some supervolcano erupts, and because of the ashes significantly less sunlight reaches the surface of the earth. Presumably, there will also be less wind then.
- croes 1y ago
  Are we playing What-if? What if hackers/terrorist attack the power plants? What if the operating companies values profit over security? What if an earthquake or Tsunami hits nuclear power plant?
  - throwaway2037 1y ago
    Am I stupid or naive to ask: > What if hackers/terrorist attack the power plants? Are most power plants in 2025 air-gapped? I assume yes.
    - croes 1y ago
      And hackers can’t beat air gaps https://www.missionsecure.com/blog/cyber-attack-india-largest-nuclear-plant-truth-air-gapping https://www.missionsecure.com/blog/cyber-attack-india-larges... The Iranian nuclear program was also air gapped. Didn’t stop Stuxnet. It’s interesting what you can do with USB drives. And more power plants means more possibilities for human errors.
- biophysboy 1y ago
  I think we would have a harder time finding food and clean water in this scenario
- sschueller 1y ago
  Even without I think wind will become too expensive eventually to make it worth while. Especially when solar gets more efficient and cheaper. Wind has down sides like moving parts and requiring giant concrete poors. Birds strikes, noise as well as ground vibration are also issues.
hansvm 1y ago
This is about to give "Killed by Google" a whole new meaning.
- fsflover 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42938125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42938125
- nfriedly 1y ago
  Hah! But, in all seriousness, this could realistically be saving lives if you go with the assumption that Google was going to use this energy either way, and it otherwise would be coming from anything other than solar. Every other source causes more deaths per energy produced. Coal is by far the worst, but natural gas, and even hydroelectric cost more lives than nuclear.
barbazoo 1y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43927371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43927371 > Ontario set to begin construction of Canada's first mini nuclear power plant
- bryanlarsen 1y ago
  $20B for 300MW, and that's before the inevitable massive cost overruns. Continuing the Ontario provincial government's history of lighting taxpayer money on fire for electricity.
  - chickenbig 1y ago
    > $20B for 300MW Estimated 20B CAD for 4 x 300MW power stations.
    - throwaway2037 1y ago
      Is that competitive compared to solar/wind + battery? I doubt it.
      - bryanlarsen 1y ago
        The press release claims it is. But other jurisdictions can build 1GW of solar + battery for $2B.
        christina97 1y ago
        Keep in mind that 1 GW solar does not equate to 1 GW firm production.
        _aavaa_ 1y ago
        Then build 10x for the same sticker price as these 4 SMRs. You'll have it done in less time, and likely even cheaper than the final cost of these 4.
mmmBacon 1y ago
It took about 1GW to train Chat-GPT4. If you look at the locations in the United States (>70% of all AI is in the US), there are only ~63 geographic regions you could put a 1GW data center. As AI models are growing at ~5x per year, it seems like the infrastructure is no in place to keep the AI models growing at that rate. As companies like Google, Meta, and others look to nuclear power (it has the highest up time of any power source), I'm wondering how localities are going to react. Are people who are local to nuclear plants just going to be OK with these gigantic corporations consuming all this power in their backyard with no benefit to them while they take all the risk and impact of that power generation? I'm also wondering how these companies are going to deal with the excess nuclear waste. Ultimately it won't be Google or Meta dealing with the waste. How do we ensure that all the nuclear waste from AI is dealt with responsibly?
- steren 1y ago
  GW is power. Gwh is energy. Energy is what matters when training a model. Please get your units right. In the meantime, down voted.
  - kridsdale1 1y ago
    Upvoted for dimensional analysis pedantry.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    > Please get your units right. In the meantime, down voted. I don’t think a reply like this is in the spirit of this site.
    - oijaefiojoijaw 1y ago
      But very in line with their bio... > Product Manager on Google Cloud Platform.
  - 1y ago
abetaha 1y ago
Ignoring what Elementl is developing as their material is confusing, what would be some of the practical energy sources for power hungry AI workloads other than nuclear?
anon6362 1y ago
While I was going to community college in the late 90's, I had an IT consulting biz where I serviced mechanical engineers and folks in the US nuclear industry who were ex-General Electric (GE NE). I learned nuclear was heavily-regulated (rightfully so) and costly but the main barriers to new sites were insurance, the huge capital investment, and the very long project cycles. As such, these are just too risky for most business people and investors. Nowadays, even with SMRs, the ROI still doesn't make sense given the massive, massive advances in renewables and regional grid storage. Very few Americans want an unproven, fly-by-night startup SMR in their neighborhood or in their county. I'd be okay with just a few mega reactors in fixed sites in very remote areas that would be heavily defended with perimeter security and anti-aircraft/-drone emplacements. I'm not okay with SMRs on flatbed trailers with minimal security in urban areas.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
EasyMarion 1y ago
The AI arms race really is literally heating up...I nuit.
eqvinox 1y ago
I don't get it. Training giant LLMs can easily be task managed to line up with solar and wind availability. Shut off half the DC at night, go full power when it's sunny and windy. If they integrate the powerplant, they can easily manage this. Is avoiding HW underutilization really worth going nuclear? The most expensive energy source of all?
- looofooo0 1y ago
  Well then you only get 50% of your compute, hence your compute is twice as expensive (ignoring power costs.)
  - eqvinox 1y ago
    I guess I'm sufficiently divorced from ops as to not know what the relationship of these costs is. I had assumed that power & cooling is a notable factor, but it sounds like the silicon itself is a majority of the cost?
    - looofooo0 1y ago
      Think 20% power cost, 80% infrastructure where most are fixed cost.

291 points by aburan28 1y ago

Here's a better article: https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/07/google_signs_another_nuclear_deal/ https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/07/google_signs_another_... > "Elementl didn't respond to questions by press time. Its public materials offer little clarity on its actual operations—aside from broad claims about providing "turn-key project development, financing and ownership solutions customized to meet our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit." > "The nuclear developer, founded in 2022, presents itself as a facilitator of advanced reactor projects. But it has not built any reactors to date and describes itself as a "technology-agnostic nuclear power developer and independent power producer," signaling it does not back any specific reactor design." > "This approach aligns with the background of Elementl's CEO and chairman, Christopher Colbert, who previously served as CFO, COO, and chief strategy officer at NuScale Power."

ertgbnm 1y ago
> "meet our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit." Holy corporate jargon batman! I love seeing example of phrases like this out in the wild. Stating this implies that minimizing risks and maximizing benefit is not a need of most customers? IMO, it's better not to say stuff like that at all. It's basically a meaningless phrase, it adds no information to the sentence. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's generally a sign that they are doing the opposite of whatever the phrase means.
- conception 1y ago
  Corporate equivalent of using a larger font and/or double spacing your term papers.
  - moffkalast 1y ago
    Corporate equivalent of acting like a douchebag who constantly makes up imaginary stories about how cool they are to distract from them being a complete loser.
- kayodelycaon 1y ago
  > Stating this implies that minimizing risks and maximizing benefit is not a need of most customers? I believe this should have meaning. It would mean risk mitigation is a primary objective of the company. And not every company decides to consider risk mitigation as a primary objective. The problem is that risk mitigation is a long term objective. Who has time for that?
- libraryatnight 1y ago
  "We will appear to meet standards while extracting maximum profit"
- dkarl 1y ago
  > Stating this implies that minimizing risks and maximizing benefit is not a need of most customers? Honestly, I'd rather them explicitly commit to minimizing risks than say, "We're going to address the needs of our customers, and that probably includes minimizing risks, at least in most cases, right? Product will let us know when they've done the research." It's better that they say these things than that they don't say them. The real problem is not that they say them, but that we can't be confident they'll live up to them.
- rdtsc 1y ago
  >> "meet our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit." > I love seeing example of phrases like this out in the wild I can image that's the stuff kids would say when asked why is the candy bowl suddenly empty: "Well, you see, we were was just meeting our needs while mitigating risk and maximizing benefit".
- ethbr1 1y ago
  'We at the Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy and NIKIET feel that the RBMK reactor design meets our customers' needs while mitigating risks and maximizing benefit.'
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > Stating this implies that minimizing risks and maximizing benefit is not a need of most customers? It’s not, at least for nuclear power. In Europe, for example, the debate is entirely emotional. So saying they’re working for a rational customer is sort of meaningful, even if corporate speakified.
agos 1y ago
this sounds like one of those Google PR moments where they desperately try to paint themselves as the good guys. Remember when they announced contact lenses to help people with diabetes? Maybe this is related to the talk about splitting Google that's going around these days?
- doublerabbit 1y ago
  You mean White Washing? How dare to think Google would think of such a thing. They're not evil after-all.
- neuronexmachina 1y ago
  > Remember when they announced contact lenses to help people with diabetes? For anyone curious about what happened with that: https://web.archive.org/web/20181117031510/https://blog.verily.com/2018/11/update-on-our-smart-lens-program-with.html https://web.archive.org/web/20181117031510/https://blog.veri... > Our clinical work on the glucose-sensing lens demonstrated that there was insufficient consistency in our measurements of the correlation between tear glucose and blood glucose concentrations to support the requirements of a medical device. In part, this was associated with the challenges of obtaining reliable tear glucose readings in the complex on-eye environment. For example, we found that interference from biomolecules in tears resulted in challenges in obtaining accurate glucose readings from the small quantities of glucose in the tear film. In addition, our clinical studies have demonstrated challenges in achieving the steady state conditions necessary for reliable tear glucose readings.
- foota 1y ago
  It seems like these news articles about XYZ superscaler announce agreement to purchase power from nuclear startup come up every few months. My assumption is that there's very little needed from Google et al to sign these agreements, and the upside is very cheap power if the startup miraculously pulls it off, so they might as well.
- rockemsockem 1y ago
  You don't think Google is interested in getting more energy for less money?
epistasis 1y ago
I'm not sure if nuclear has always been a field where charlatans proliferate, but it's certainly true of the past few decades. The Summer plant in South Carolina was completely fraudulent, sending the power executives to jail for their fraud. Billions spent and nothing to show except a hole in the ground. Vogtle was slightly better in that they powered through to construction completion so that nobody cared about the deception and grift that resulted in a cost 3x that of estimates. The startups have been bad too, with some disingenuously starting regulatory processes and then not even responding to questions or attempting to follow through. South Koreas is the most developed nation that has had success building, and even they send people to jail for construction fraud. There are undoubtedly many honest and earnest people trying to build new nuclear. But it's hard to tell who until after billions have been sunk and misallocated.
- cyberax 1y ago
  > South Koreas is the most developed nation that has had success building, and even they send people to jail for construction fraud. That's why :) Russia is also fairly successful at building reactors. Although, somehow their orders pipeline has been getting shorter and shorter (wonder why...).
- Workaccount2 1y ago
  It's likely because the NRC is the most insanely regulatory body of the US government. Ostensibly, this is a good thing, nuclear power, meltdowns, radioactive waste, etc. But really I cannot emphasize enough how strict and overbearing they are. "Oh that 12V backup battery pack needs to be replaced? Better get the same one from the same manufacturer" "They aren't in business anymore but we have this 12V battery the fits perfectly, same specs" "Nope, not certified with that system. You can start recertification that will cost ~$40M if you like" "...." There is so much ass covering and not wanting to take responsibility that the market is basically in paralysis.
  - nolist_policy 1y ago
    Do you have a source?
Animats 1y ago
Oh, it's the NuScale guy again. NuScale got far enough to get approval to build a test reactor at the Idaho Reactor Testing Station, which is in Outer Nowhere for good reasons. But they never got enough funding to build it. The trouble with most of these small modular reactor schemes is that their big pitch is mostly "we don't need a big, strong, containment vessel because ... reasons." There's no inherent problem in building a small nuclear reactor. Here's one from 1957, near Oakland, CA.[1] It's safety if something goes badly wrong that's a problem. History: - Chernobyl - meltdown and fire, no containment vessel, major disaster. - Fukushima - meltdown, too-small containment vessel, large disaster. - Three Mile Island - meltdown, big strong containment vessel, plant lost but no disaster. Alternative reactor history: - Fort St. Vrain - high temperature gas-cooled, subject to helium plumbing leaks in radioactive zone, shut down and plant converted to natural gas. - AVR reactor, Germany - pebble bed reactor, had pebble jam, had to be shut down, extremely difficult to decommission. - Sodium reactors - prone to fires.[3] - Molten salt reactors [4] - require an attached chemical plant that reprocesses radioactive molten salt. Most of the problems of nuclear reactors in practice involve plumbing. Everything in the radioactive zone has to last half a century or so without maintenance. That's possible with distilled water as the working fluid, but everything else tried has not worked well. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1O8xAB_FDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1O8xAB_FDI [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_reactor [3] https://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/research/technical-papers-and-articles/2019/overview-of-liquid-sodium-fires/ https://www.nuclearsafety.gc.ca/eng/resources/research/techn... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-salt_reactor
- concordDance 1y ago
  > Fukushima - meltdown, too-small containment vessel, large disaster. Probably overselling the "large" there... at least on the scale of global power production.
  - lostlogin 1y ago
    You wouldn’t call Fukushima a large disaster? The financial cost is at $180 billion US. That seems large.
os2warpman 1y ago
>Elementl Missing vowels + no plan + a leadership team stacked with MBAs, investment bankers, and FAMILY MEMBERS?!?= bullshit private equity "play". Let me predict what is going to happen: a team of connected "playaz" are going to get real companies with cash and the government to give them money to shake up the nuclear market. Then the leadership team is going to hire a token staff of scientists, engineers, and public policy folks. They are going to have a groundbreaking ceremony for a facility (not a reactor, like an R&D facility or "rapid innovation incubator" or something) that is highly publicized and subsidized by state and local business development grants and credits but will either never be finished or never fully staffed. Nothing will happen for four years until they either fade out of existence or declare defeat due to "regulatory and market conditions" with nothing to show but some powerpoints and press releases. The hundreds of millions of dollars that flowed into the organization is never spoken of or seen again. Then a couple of years later they'll register another .io domain with missing vowels and start all over again.

melling 1y ago

Do the “no nuclear, renewables are the future” people have any comments? We burned a few decades saying solar and wind are the solution. This set us back greatly in the struggle to reduce greenhouse emissions.

bryanlarsen 1y ago
20 years ago nuclear was the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushed solar & wind as a distraction. Today solar & wind are the fastest, cheapest and best method for carbon free electricity, so the fossil industry pushes nuclear as a distraction.
- adventured 1y ago
  Replacement isn't remotely close to good enough. We need a massive increase in the supply of energy. Nuclear is the only viable path for that. We can do more than one thing at a time, we have the resources.
  - bryanlarsen 1y ago
    Yes, we need a massive increase in the supply of energy. Solar is the only way we're going to get it. We're adding solar at a 1TW / year rate. We're adding nuclear at a rate of ~30 GW / year.
    - SoftTalker 1y ago
      So why is Microsoft spending billions to restart three mile island rather than just installing some solar panels?
      - ViewTrick1002 1y ago
        Because with IRA massively lowering the costs restarting a plant might actually be feasible. The problem is that new built nuclear power costs tens of billions.

bee_rider 1y ago

Personally I’m skeptical of nuclear power given how much easier it is to incrementally add renewable capacity (sure, intermittence is a problem, but I think we can deal with it by being cleverer). But anyway, if anybody (other than the government, which gave up long ago) can pay the upfront costs of nuclear, it is the big tech companies like Google. > […] Google has set 2030 goals to reach net zero emissions across its operations and value chain, […] Man, I remember when 2030 seemed like the future. But now it seems downright aggressive. Good luck Google.

melling 1y ago
US Net Zero is 2050. With 25 years remaining, I think shooting for 2030 seems reasonable. We’ve just about hit peak coal. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/18/coal-use-to-reach-new-peak-and-remain-at-near-record-levels-for-years https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/dec/18/coal-use-to...
- titzer 1y ago
  > The world’s coal use is expected to reach a fresh high of 8.7bn tonnes this year, and remain at near-record levels for years as a result of a global gas crisis triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Not sure that counts as "just about hit peak coal".
rcpt 1y ago
Renewables are only easy if you ignore regulations. For whatever stupid reason local busybodies lose their shit about windmills regularly and they are frustratingly hard to ignore.
- worldsayshi 1y ago
  Doesn't revenue sharing often turn those frowns upside down? More inclusive business models might help?
  - tough 1y ago

bpodgursky 1y ago

Every compute company knows that power shortage is a looming crisis. They don't have nuclear expertise in-house and are desperately looking for somewhere to put their money that seems to have experience and capability This is a good thing, but will be fruitless unless the US NRC modernizes in parallel with the industry to actually approve a new reactor in less than geologic time.

delusional 1y ago
Ignoring AI (don't @ me) what are we doing with all that compute? Google (the search engine) hasn't meaningfully changed. Shopping is still largely the same as when Amazon first started out. Websites are pretty much the same. I don't understand what we're doing with all those operations. I guess VOD is new, but does that really demand that amount of compute?
- rockemsockem 1y ago
  More people and more companies engaging in digital services which are backed by Google cloud or another cloud?
philipkglass 1y ago
The NRC isn't the bottleneck. For the recently completed Vogtle Unit 3 reactor, construction work and permitting work ran in tandem. Early construction work started in 2009 and all NRC approvals were completed by 2012. Neither NRC regulations nor lawsuits ever halted construction. Vogtle 3 was originally supposed to be ready in 2016. It suffered enormous cost overruns and delays due to the companies actually building it before finally entering service in 2023. https://www.powermag.com/vogtle-3-reaches-initial-criticality-marking-pivotal-nuclear-startup-milestone/ https://www.powermag.com/vogtle-3-reaches-initial-criticalit... The identical AP1000 reactors under construction at VC Summer in South Carolina also suffered enormous cost overruns and delays, again not caused by the NRC or lawsuits. The construction problems were so severe at the VC Summer project that the project halted after spending over $9 billion, it led to the largest business failure in the history of South Carolina, and a couple of company executives went to prison for securities fraud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nukegate_scandal

dfilppi 1y ago

Nuclear (hopefully fusion at some point) is the only plausible way to meet energy needs in the future (that we currently know of). Fear of nuclear waste isn't irrational, but highly overblown because catastrophic events are more emotionally compelling than the slow degradation of either living standards and/or environment caused by competing technology.

doublerabbit 1y ago
What happens in such case were a reactor was to blow. What then? Or are you saying we just deal with it when it occurs? I am not fully detesting nuclear, but I do disagree it a cure to the environment crisis as Solar is plenty and free; as are Wind and Water too. The risks of what if; and that now we live in such a volatile world. How are you going to convince me it's safe? How do I know a drone won't strike it in the next war? Some sponsored hack? Stuxnet was an organised hack that was created to aid destruction to nuclear hardware. Chernobyl is still unsafe and that's many years ago and was recently damaged again by a drone.
- XorNot 1y ago
  Nuclear reactors do not surprise explode. The Chinese designs are passively safe: cut off all power and they'll simply sit there. They do not require active cooling. The Gen 4 designs, which they also have, are physics safe: literally drop bombs on them and they still won't fail (bombing a nuclear plant in general is an over stated risk for other reasons too). They're building those now too.
  - doublerabbit 1y ago
    Hacks, cyber espionage? So it sounds like the view point of "deal with it when it happens then" and that's what puts me off nuclear. Nuclear is too unstable when something does occur to be contained and as to when dismantled.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]

dhruv3006 1y ago

Woooah! Times are changing.

floxy 1y ago

I suppose like anything there are multiple reasons, but what are the top 3 why California electric rates are so high (compared to the rest of the U.S.)? https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/ https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/ Why doesn't the state encourage more capacity to bring costs down? (to encourage electrification/EVs, etc.) Is it because they are phasing out natural gas? Is it to encourage roof top solar? Or trying to reduce consumption by having high prices? Or environmental permitting? "Lobbying" by entrenched incumbents? Or maybe the high price is due to taxes and not the price of generation?

neural_thing 1y ago
It's because the California government doesn't believe in markets, prices as incentives or anything like that. California govt believes in state mandates
- lern_too_spel 1y ago
  California famously deregulated its electricity market at the end of the 20th century, becoming the first state to do so. https://paylesspower.com/blog/deregulated-energy-states/ https://paylesspower.com/blog/deregulated-energy-states/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%932001_California_electricity_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%E2%80%932001_California_e...
  - ryan93 1y ago
    Wow no regulations in California. First I’m hearing of this
    - jppittma 1y ago
      Can we get an updated opinion in light of the facts being the exact reverse opposite of the initial hypothesis?
      - 1y ago

muth02446 1y ago

I view nuclear as a prudent diversification of energy sources: What happens if some supervolcano erupts, and because of the ashes significantly less sunlight reaches the surface of the earth. Presumably, there will also be less wind then.

croes 1y ago
Are we playing What-if? What if hackers/terrorist attack the power plants? What if the operating companies values profit over security? What if an earthquake or Tsunami hits nuclear power plant?
- throwaway2037 1y ago
  Am I stupid or naive to ask: > What if hackers/terrorist attack the power plants? Are most power plants in 2025 air-gapped? I assume yes.
  - croes 1y ago
    And hackers can’t beat air gaps https://www.missionsecure.com/blog/cyber-attack-india-largest-nuclear-plant-truth-air-gapping https://www.missionsecure.com/blog/cyber-attack-india-larges... The Iranian nuclear program was also air gapped. Didn’t stop Stuxnet. It’s interesting what you can do with USB drives. And more power plants means more possibilities for human errors.
biophysboy 1y ago
I think we would have a harder time finding food and clean water in this scenario
sschueller 1y ago
Even without I think wind will become too expensive eventually to make it worth while. Especially when solar gets more efficient and cheaper. Wind has down sides like moving parts and requiring giant concrete poors. Birds strikes, noise as well as ground vibration are also issues.

hansvm 1y ago

This is about to give "Killed by Google" a whole new meaning.

fsflover 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42938125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42938125
nfriedly 1y ago
Hah! But, in all seriousness, this could realistically be saving lives if you go with the assumption that Google was going to use this energy either way, and it otherwise would be coming from anything other than solar. Every other source causes more deaths per energy produced. Coal is by far the worst, but natural gas, and even hydroelectric cost more lives than nuclear.

barbazoo 1y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43927371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43927371 > Ontario set to begin construction of Canada's first mini nuclear power plant

bryanlarsen 1y ago
$20B for 300MW, and that's before the inevitable massive cost overruns. Continuing the Ontario provincial government's history of lighting taxpayer money on fire for electricity.
- chickenbig 1y ago
  > $20B for 300MW Estimated 20B CAD for 4 x 300MW power stations.
  - throwaway2037 1y ago
    Is that competitive compared to solar/wind + battery? I doubt it.
    - bryanlarsen 1y ago
      The press release claims it is. But other jurisdictions can build 1GW of solar + battery for $2B.
      - christina97 1y ago
        Keep in mind that 1 GW solar does not equate to 1 GW firm production.
        _aavaa_ 1y ago
        Then build 10x for the same sticker price as these 4 SMRs. You'll have it done in less time, and likely even cheaper than the final cost of these 4.

mmmBacon 1y ago

It took about 1GW to train Chat-GPT4. If you look at the locations in the United States (>70% of all AI is in the US), there are only ~63 geographic regions you could put a 1GW data center. As AI models are growing at ~5x per year, it seems like the infrastructure is no in place to keep the AI models growing at that rate. As companies like Google, Meta, and others look to nuclear power (it has the highest up time of any power source), I'm wondering how localities are going to react. Are people who are local to nuclear plants just going to be OK with these gigantic corporations consuming all this power in their backyard with no benefit to them while they take all the risk and impact of that power generation? I'm also wondering how these companies are going to deal with the excess nuclear waste. Ultimately it won't be Google or Meta dealing with the waste. How do we ensure that all the nuclear waste from AI is dealt with responsibly?

steren 1y ago
GW is power. Gwh is energy. Energy is what matters when training a model. Please get your units right. In the meantime, down voted.
- kridsdale1 1y ago
  Upvoted for dimensional analysis pedantry.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- barbazoo 1y ago
  > Please get your units right. In the meantime, down voted. I don’t think a reply like this is in the spirit of this site.
  - oijaefiojoijaw 1y ago
    But very in line with their bio... > Product Manager on Google Cloud Platform.
- 1y ago

abetaha 1y ago

Ignoring what Elementl is developing as their material is confusing, what would be some of the practical energy sources for power hungry AI workloads other than nuclear?

anon6362 1y ago

While I was going to community college in the late 90's, I had an IT consulting biz where I serviced mechanical engineers and folks in the US nuclear industry who were ex-General Electric (GE NE). I learned nuclear was heavily-regulated (rightfully so) and costly but the main barriers to new sites were insurance, the huge capital investment, and the very long project cycles. As such, these are just too risky for most business people and investors. Nowadays, even with SMRs, the ROI still doesn't make sense given the massive, massive advances in renewables and regional grid storage. Very few Americans want an unproven, fly-by-night startup SMR in their neighborhood or in their county. I'd be okay with just a few mega reactors in fixed sites in very remote areas that would be heavily defended with perimeter security and anti-aircraft/-drone emplacements. I'm not okay with SMRs on flatbed trailers with minimal security in urban areas.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

EasyMarion 1y ago

The AI arms race really is literally heating up...I nuit.

eqvinox 1y ago

I don't get it. Training giant LLMs can easily be task managed to line up with solar and wind availability. Shut off half the DC at night, go full power when it's sunny and windy. If they integrate the powerplant, they can easily manage this. Is avoiding HW underutilization really worth going nuclear? The most expensive energy source of all?

looofooo0 1y ago
Well then you only get 50% of your compute, hence your compute is twice as expensive (ignoring power costs.)
- eqvinox 1y ago
  I guess I'm sufficiently divorced from ops as to not know what the relationship of these costs is. I had assumed that power & cooling is a notable factor, but it sounds like the silicon itself is a majority of the cost?
  - looofooo0 1y ago
    Think 20% power cost, 80% infrastructure where most are fixed cost.