Microsoft buying Three Mile Island reactor to power AI

UNCjigga · 2024-09-20T13:12:16-0400

Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft would own 100% of the nuclear energy output for 20 years. Apparently, this is the only way to power CoPilot and other AI tools for millions of individuals while not burning fossil fuels. I'm assuming, since much of Microsoft's AI stack is built on ChatGPT, that OpenAI might be another beneficiary of the deal.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/constellation-inks-power-supply-deal-with-microsoft-2024-09-20/

Constellation Energy and Microsoft have signed a data center deal to help resurrect a unit of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in what would be the first-ever restart of its kind, the companies said on Friday. Big tech has led to a sudden surge in U.S. electricity demand for data centers needed to expand technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Nuclear energy, which is nearly carbon-free and broadly considered more reliable than energy sources like solar and wind, has become a popular option for technology company's with uninterrupted power needs and climate pledges.

"Nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise [of carbon neutral energy]," Constellation Chief Executive Officer Joe Dominguez said in a statement.
A relaunch of Three Mile Island, which had a separate unit suffer a partial-meltdown in 1979 in one of the biggest industrial accidents in the country's history, still requires federal, state and local approvals.
The deal would help enable a revival of Unit 1 of the five-decades-old facility in Pennsylvania that was retired in 2019 due to economic reasons.

hal2kilo · 2024-09-20T13:16:25-0400

UNCjigga said:
Under the terms of the deal, Microsoft would own 100% of the nuclear energy output for 20 years. Apparently, this is the only way to power CoPilot and other AI tools for millions of individuals while not burning fossil fuels. I'm assuming, since much of Microsoft's AI stack is built on ChatGPT, that OpenAI might be another beneficiary of the deal.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/constellation-inks-power-supply-deal-with-microsoft-2024-09-20/

Constellation Energy and Microsoft have signed a data center deal to help resurrect a unit of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania in what would be the first-ever restart of its kind, the companies said on Friday. Big tech has led to a sudden surge in U.S. electricity demand for data centers needed to expand technologies like artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Nuclear energy, which is nearly carbon-free and broadly considered more reliable than energy sources like solar and wind, has become a popular option for technology company's with uninterrupted power needs and climate pledges.

"Nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise [of carbon neutral energy]," Constellation Chief Executive Officer Joe Dominguez said in a statement.
A relaunch of Three Mile Island, which had a separate unit suffer a partial-meltdown in 1979 in one of the biggest industrial accidents in the country's history, still requires federal, state and local approvals.
The deal would help enable a revival of Unit 1 of the five-decades-old facility in Pennsylvania that was retired in 2019 due to economic reasons.

I so can't wait for full implementation of Skynet.

K1052 · 2024-09-20T13:19:39-0400

in what would be the first-ever restart of its kind

Not exactly true with Palisades coming back online next year.

dank69 · 2024-09-20T13:41:38-0400

I can't do that, Dave.

darkswordsman17 · 2024-09-20T15:18:27-0400

Fuck, I literally called this, only, I thought this would be like 10+ years in the future.

Page 319 - Discussion - Apple Silicon SoC thread

Page 319 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

forums.anandtech.com

Right now they're lucky as they have Microsoft willing to throw their data centers behind it, but it costs a lot of money to build and run data centers (just look at how Amazon and everyone is like "oh it costs us money to run voice assistants and we don't really get money from it"; AI is that but even more ridiculous disparity in the resources needed for the outputs) and they're starting to face pushback. At some point Microsoft is gonna have to justify the expenses to their stock holders. They're basically building towards a nuclear future, by which I mean Microsoft is building towards a future where new data center will be scrutinized as much as a nuclear reactor, as people are starting to turn against such (because they don't employ nearly as much people as claimed, especially long term, they steal resources like water which are gong to become even more significant, and their power needs are gonna require nuclear reactors to operate).

Goddamnit.

Just what we need, nuclear power plants operated by for profit companies who only care about profit (all the current tech management are focused on that above all, they're not even tech people). JFC, we are fucking doomed. And its gonna be because of AI, just not for the reasons we think, it'll be because of the greedy fucking asswipes trying to become trillionaires at everyone else's expense.

repoman0 · 2024-09-20T15:27:39-0400

darkswordsman17 said:
Just what we need, nuclear power plants operated by for profit companies who only care about profit (all the current tech management are focused on that above all, they're not even tech people).

You don’t think Microsoft’s ability to make a profit is contingent on them not melting down a nuclear reactor? 🙄 Chill the fuck out, we should be building out nuclear power. AI is here to stay so it’s this or burning more fossil fuels. This is better.

Brainonska511 · 2024-09-20T15:33:14-0400

repoman0 said:
You don’t think Microsoft’s ability to make a profit is contingent on them not melting down a nuclear reactor? 🙄 Chill the fuck out, we should be building out nuclear power. AI is here to stay so it’s this or burning more fossil fuels. This is better.

Some people love the degrowth ideas of energy austerity, instead of of harnessing nearly limitless resources of cheap, renewable (or extremely green) forms of energy to make our lives better.

Fenixgoon · 2024-09-20T15:36:04-0400

repoman0 said:
You don’t think Microsoft’s ability to make a profit is contingent on them not melting down a nuclear reactor? 🙄 Chill the fuck out, we should be building out nuclear power. AI is here to stay so it’s this or burning more fossil fuels. This is better.

Nuclear as an energy source itself is great. Nuclear as an economic proposition is, sadly, terrible.

It takes about 20 years and $20-30B to build out a new plant from scratch, before you even get to flip the switch to start making revenue. By that time, you could have built tons of wind and solar, gone through multiple generations/iterations, and would have been generating power within a couple of years of project start.

I very much support nuclear power and hope we can build things like molten salt reactors economically. But so far, it really hasn't planned out. Wind and solar have simply gotten too cheap.

repoman0 · 2024-09-20T15:45:13-0400

Fenixgoon said:
Nuclear as an energy source itself is great. Nuclear as an economic proposition is, sadly, terrible.

It takes about 20 years and $20-30B to build out a new plant from scratch, before you even get to flip the switch to start making revenue. By that time, you could have built tons of wind and solar, gone through multiple generations/iterations, and would have been generating power within a couple of years of project start.

I very much support nuclear power and hope we can build things like molten salt reactors economically. But so far, it really hasn't planned out. Wind and solar have simply gotten too cheap.

I don’t disagree, but you have to assume that the bean counters at Microsoft aren’t idiots when they came to the conclusion that it’s cheaper and more reliable to safely operate a nuclear plant for the next 20 years than to power their data centers with solar and batteries.

[DHT]Osiris · 2024-09-20T15:46:18-0400

Fenixgoon said:
Nuclear as an energy source itself is great. Nuclear as an economic proposition is, sadly, terrible.

It takes about 20 years and $20-30B to build out a new plant from scratch, before you even get to flip the switch to start making revenue. By that time, you could have built tons of wind and solar, gone through multiple generations/iterations, and would have been generating power within a couple of years of project start.

I very much support nuclear power and hope we can build things like molten salt reactors economically. But so far, it really hasn't planned out. Wind and solar have simply gotten too cheap.

Actually, it's not. The TCO of energy generation should include the health cost to society. Nuclear would by a very large margin come out ahead of non-renewables, and probably solar as well.

Fenixgoon · 2024-09-20T15:46:50-0400

repoman0 said:
I don’t disagree, but you have to assume that the bean counters at Microsoft aren’t idiots when they came to the conclusion that it’s cheaper and more reliable to safely operate a nuclear plant for the next 20 years than to power their data centers with solar and batteries.

An already-existing plant. That's a very important distinction.

Brainonska511 · 2024-09-20T15:50:53-0400

Fenixgoon said:
Nuclear as an energy source itself is great. Nuclear as an economic proposition is, sadly, terrible.

It takes about 20 years and $20-30B to build out a new plant from scratch, before you even get to flip the switch to start making revenue. By that time, you could have built tons of wind and solar, gone through multiple generations/iterations, and would have been generating power within a couple of years of project start.

I very much support nuclear power and hope we can build things like molten salt reactors economically. But so far, it really hasn't planned out. Wind and solar have simply gotten too cheap.

But does it actually cost $20-$30 billion or that's just what it costs because we've added so many road blocks, everything is bespoke, thus killing all economies of scale discounts we could have?

Fenixgoon · 2024-09-20T15:53:41-0400

Brainonska511 said:
But does it actually cost $20-$30 billion or that's just what it costs because we've added so many road blocks, everything is bespoke, thus killing all economies of scale discounts we could have?

Maybe SMRs can address many of the problems associated with traditional reactor design. I hope NuScale can find a way to make it work

Study identifies reasons for soaring nuclear plant cost overruns in the U.S.

MIT researchers have analyzed the causes of many cost overruns on new nuclear power plants in the U.S., which have soared in the past 50 years. The findings may help designers of new plants build in resilience to prevent such added costs.

news.mit.edu

Fanatical Meat · 2024-09-20T16:10:12-0400

Great AI not only going to ruin the internet and take jobs it’s also going to raise electric bills.
Awesome.

repoman0 · 2024-09-20T16:13:45-0400

Fanatical Meat said:
Great AI not only going to ruin the internet and take jobs it’s also going to raise electric bills.
Awesome.

Why exactly does an AI company footing the bill to reopen a defunct nuclear plant raise electricity prices?

Fanatical Meat · 2024-09-20T16:14:41-0400

repoman0 said:
Why exactly does an AI company footing the bill to reopen a defunct nuclear plant raise electricity prices?

Oh is it still closed? I assumed it was still producing limited power to the grid.

repoman0 · 2024-09-20T16:15:51-0400

Fanatical Meat said:
Oh is it still closed? I assumed it was still producing limited power to the grid.

Just going from the OP where it says it was retired in 2019.

Fanatical Meat · 2024-09-20T16:18:47-0400

repoman0 said:
Just going from the OP where it says it was retired in 2019.

Oops missed that

UNCjigga · 2024-09-20T16:22:02-0400

I just think it’s odd that America’s corporate dominated society has put us in this position. We should all be benefiting from greater access to nuclear power—not just some software company. Because of the startup costs involved and ROI making nuclear a difficult proposition for the market, we should have a government program along the lines of the Tennessee Valley Authority 2.0 to help nuclear power proliferate safely (especially in coal-dominated areas like WVa, PA and rural plains/western states) with a focus on the total lifecycle of the fuel rods (I.e. not just the energy production component but fuel sourcing, production, waste management etc.—things a for-profit company won’t want to deal with.)

repoman0 · 2024-09-20T16:25:11-0400

UNCjigga said:
I just think it’s odd that America’s corporate dominated society has put us in this position. We should all be benefiting from greater access to nuclear power—not just some software company. Because of the startup costs involved and ROI making nuclear a difficult proposition for the market, we should have a government program along the lines of the Tennessee Valley Authority 2.0 to help nuclear power proliferate safely (especially in coal-dominated areas like WVa, PA and rural plains/western states) with a focus on the total lifecycle of the fuel rods (I.e. not just the energy production component but fuel sourcing, production, waste management etc.—things a for-profit company won’t want to deal with.)

Absolutely. It is a valid complaint that the government hasn’t helped nuclear proliferate, probably in large part due to conservative climate change denialism. That doesn’t mean we should bitch about a tech company basically doing the right thing. They could just buy dirty power from the grid, probably for cheaper, and actually raise prices for everyone.

I’m also not going to join the anti-AI crusade — of course this was coming, and now it’s up to society and government to put guard rails on it. ChatGPT is a powerful tool and saves me probably 8-10 hours of boilerplate and scouring stackoverflow weekly.

mikeymikec · 2024-09-20T16:39:10-0400

AI is like the Bulldozer version of basic information retrieval.

brycejones · 2024-09-20T17:59:17-0400

Brainonska511 said:
But does it actually cost $20-$30 billion or that's just what it costs because we've added so many road blocks, everything is bespoke, thus killing all economies of scale discounts we could have?

Frankly until there is a repeatable design that can be “mass produced” in this case meaning probably ~100 to the same design there is no hope for bringing down the cost.

brycejones · 2024-09-20T18:03:22-0400

K1052 said:
Not exactly true with Palisades coming back online next year.

Palisades needs repairs so probably a few years out.

K1052 · 2024-09-20T18:09:31-0400

brycejones said:
Palisades needs repairs so probably a few years out.

Holtec says late next year but that's mostly going to depend on the NRC.

cytg111 · 2024-09-20T18:12:49-0400

And for the first time in human history gods will walk the earth

Common Elmo, raise or fold bitch.

Microsoft buying Three Mile Island reactor to power AI

Lifer

Lifer

Elite Member

Lifer

Lifer

Diamond Member

Lifer

Lifer

Diamond Member

Lifer

Lifer

Lifer

Lifer

Lifer

Diamond Member

Lifer

Diamond Member

Lifer

Lifer

Diamond Member

Lifer

Lifer

Lifer

Elite Member

Lifer