Comment by LogicWolfe
9 hours ago
This seems to boil down to AI uses lots of power and some of that currently comes from nuclear so we’re going to definitely ramp up nuclear energy production. It in no way addresses the cost, regulatory, or public acceptance issues. It also completely ignores things like grid storage that could make renewables a viable alternative. I don’t know if nuclear energy production is going to increase and after reading this I’m absolutely no closer to a deeper understanding of the issue.
Nobody needs a kind of AI that consumes that much energy. There's no way that's commercially viable and carries its own weight. Also, the whole discussion is taking place in the context of present day GenAI where nobody has found a marketable use case for it. This whole bubble would be long bust by the time construction puts its boots on the ground.
A better justification for more nuclear energy is to electrify transportation and residential heating/cooling while navigating the climate catastrophe, don't you think?
> Nobody needs a kind of AI that consumes that much energy.
Rather: nobody needs to spend that much on current quality AI.
Say for the sake of argument that the accelerationists are correct about the timescale for future capabilities (I hope they're wrong in the short term, but run with it):
If we had an AI that could drive robots — cars, androids, surgical machines, industrial equipment — at least as well as any human, but the compute meant that it took 10 kW to do so, at electricity prices of $0.1/kWh that AI is cost-competitive with $1/h human labour.
If that happens and there's enough compute but not enough energy, energy prices rise to match human wages (so at least a factor of ten for this arbitrary example).
To avoid energy price rises, and for current economic output, that would require the USA to have about 170 million (workforce) * 10 kW = 1.7 TW ≈ 3.9 times current US electrical production.
(For the avoidance of doubt, 10 kW is a completely made up number with no real justification beyond it being simultaneously a relatively small number for an isolated valuable industrial device while also much more than a human brain).
> A better justification for more nuclear energy is to electrify transportation and residential heating/cooling while navigating the climate catastrophe, don't you think?
Not really, the reason for nuclear rather than renewables is more about the relative cost compared to time-shifting power generation with storage, and (most*) transportation already needs storage.
Heating and cooling is likewise, with good insulation, something that can work fine as time-shifting — the apartment I own back in the UK has storage heaters, everywhere I've lived (outside university) has/had hot water tanks.
The other reason for nuclear reactors is so you can maintain a nuclear arsenal, which sadly seems to be the only way for nations to stop other nuclear powers from messing with them.
* trains and trams can get rail/overhead line power, but cars, aircraft can't do that; trucks can be adapted that way, but only to reduce storage not eliminate it and even then it's just experimental**; shipping technically can use nuclear but ports don't want to accept such vessels and nobody wants pirates stealing nuclear reactors
** Literally the only example I've encountered, quick google suggests it's still only in testing: https://youtu.be/_3P_S7pL7Yg?si=IWKWIVAKbjHD0eL2
Perhaps the biggest issue isn't public acceptance, but simply we stuck at building fission plants, even when we intend to.
I was pro nuclear power sixteen years sixteen years ago (these days I'm more ambivalent). In that time the UK has built maybe three quarters of a nuclear power plant.
Nuclear waste sucks but carbon in the atmosphere is way worse. But we're incapable of increasing nuclear production. Meanwhile renewables have gotten way cheaper and storage is beginning to look feasible.