The artificial intelligence industry is driving a nuclear power renaissance—in part to fuel itself | Wilnesh News

Tech companies and Silicon Valley billionaires have been investing heavily in nuclear energy for years, seeing sustainable energy as key to a green transition. Now they have another driver for it: artificial intelligence.

While generative AI is advancing at lightning speed, nuclear power projects are tightly regulated and often proceed slowly. That raises questions about whether advances in nuclear energy can reduce emissions as quickly as energy-hungry artificial intelligence and other rapidly developing technologies.

“If you were to integrate a large language model, a GPT-style model, into a search engine, the environmental cost would be five times that of standard search,” said Sarah Myers West, managing director of the AI ​​Now Institute, a research institute focused on artificial intelligence. research group. The social impact of artificial intelligence.At current growth rates, some new artificial intelligence servers Will soon consume more than 85 terawatt hours Researchers estimate that the annual electricity consumption exceeds the annual energy consumption of some small countries.

“I want to see innovation in this country,” Miles West said. “I just hope the scope of innovation can transcend the incentive structures of these large companies.”

Oklo is one of the nuclear startups backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who describes artificial intelligence and cheap green energy as mutually reinforcing elements for a “rich” future.

“Fundamentally, the two limiting commodities that are everywhere in today’s world are intelligence (which is what we’re trying to solve with artificial intelligence) and energy,” he told CNBC in 2021 and previously told Helion Energy (a nuclear fusion startup) invested $375 million. Ultraman chair. Microsoft It agreed last year to buy power from Helion starting in 2028. Oklo, chaired by Altman, focused on the opposite reaction, fission, which produces energy by splitting atoms; fusion, which works by merging atomic nuclei.

Representatives for Altman, through its special purpose acquisition company AltC, did not respond to requests for comment.

In rural southeastern Idaho, Oklo is working to build a small nuclear power plant to fuel the data centers OpenAI and its competitors need. But the company also hopes to provide mixed-use community and industrial facilities and has signed on to build two commercial plants in southern Ohio.

as america Towards mass adoption of electric vehicles “We need a lot of energy to achieve this,” said Jacob DeWitte, CEO and co-founder of Oklo. “And heating and cooking – if we want to electrify those processes, you’re going to need more.”

Oklo found that getting regulators involved was more difficult than finding potential customers.

In 2022, the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees commercial nuclear power plants and materials, rejected the company’s design application for its Aurora plant in Idaho, saying it did not provide sufficient safety information. In October, the Air Force withdrew its intention to award a contract for a microreactor pilot program at the Alaska base.

“You’ve got new physics, you’ve got to use new models. You’ve got to do all kinds of different things than what they’re used to,” DeWitt said of the NRC. Oklo is now working to meet the regulator’s requirements, he said, acknowledging that agency officials must “work independently to ensure adequate safety requirements are met.”

At 13,000 square feet and equipped with a 15-megawatt fission reactor, Oklo’s proposed Aurora power plant is smaller than earlier plants and looks more like a sleek ski lodge than one with its iconic Cold War-era curves. Tower of power plant. The plant will be built at the Idaho National Laboratory, a research facility where Oklo received a grant from the Department of Energy to test recycling nuclear waste into new fuel. The design is also safer because liquid metal is used as the coolant instead of water, DeWitt said.

The nuclear power industry has not meaningfully expanded its share of the U.S. energy mix in decades. It is progressing smoothly despite popular opposition caused by rare but devastating accidents such as Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986 and Fukushima in Japan in 2011. But as the climate crisis worsens, a majority of Americans now support expanding nuclear energy—57%, up from 43% in 2020. Pew Research Center Survey Discovered last year.

At present, nuclear power only accounts for Accounting for 19% of the country’s total power generation, there are currently 93 commercial reactors in operation, down from a peak of 112 in 1990.According to one estimate, at most 800 GW By 2050, additional nuclear power will be needed to meet current green energy goals.

But as tech companies rush into artificial intelligence, many data centers have strive to increase capacity Fast enough to afford data center rent up nearly 16% Only 2022 to last year. Tightening demand is one of the reasons why major industry players are stepping up nuclear investments.

Microsoft signs agreement Last summer, it partnered with top nuclear power plant operator Constellation to add nuclear power to its Virginia data center. Previous year, Google Participated in the US$250 million financing of fusion startup TAE Technologies. In late 2021, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and other investors raised money Over $130 million General Fusion Canada.

It makes sense for tech companies to tap nuclear power plants directly “instead of drawing power from the grid,” said Ross Matzkin-Bridger, senior director of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit focused on reducing nuclear and biological risks. .He pointed out that in addition to being clean, many recent nuclear projects Very compact too. “Nuclear energy can hold more energy per acre than any other technology,” he said.

Outside Silicon Valley, “the big investment firms are actually starting to believe this is going to take off,” said Ayan Paul, a scientist at Northeastern University who studies artificial intelligence. “People are starting to believe that these energy sources will fuel our population.”

But some experts warn that efforts to expand nuclear power should not be rushed, no matter how fast demand grows.

“We need nuclear energy to achieve a low-carbon future,” said Ahmed Abdullah, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Carleton University. But for engineering projects that have historically taken decades, the regulatory process needs to be methodical, he said. Said: “If we sprint to the target, we risk making serious mistakes.”