this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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Microsoft Needs So Much Power to Train AI That It's Considering Small Nuclear Reactors (futurism.com)
submitted 1 year ago by FlyingSquid to c/technology
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[–] scarabic 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Modern nuclear reactors are designed to fail safely, so Windows couldn’t actually create a Chernobyl. Everything wrong with nuclear in our world is with old-gen plants. It’s a technology that got ahead of itself by 50 years.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Yeah, there's very little information in the article on what type of reactor they plan to use, but I hope they're able to go with something like a molten salt reactor with a thorium fuel cycle.

[–] scarabic 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Getting half a dozen of those built and in use would be exactly the kind of thing that tech billionaires are actually good for.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fuck that. Take all the government grants and subsidies that would surely exist, and then use it for their own good/profit/power hoarding? No thanks.

Putting billionaires in control of our nuclear power infrastructure after "building" them with mostly taxpayer money, when it's all said and done, is an absolutely bone chilling thought. Terrifying.

[–] scarabic 2 points 1 year ago

I don’t know why you think government subsidies exist - so impoverished single moms can build power plants? No. They’re pork for billionaires by design, to get them off their asses and steer them into directions we want to go. Like venture capital, they are also high risk. Our federal budget can support some level of this and it’s frankly needed to drive change in new or stalled industries where the motive for immediate profit isn’t strong enough to overcome the cold start problem. If your hatred of billionaires keeps you from making smart energy choices to address climate change, then your priorities are wrong.

[–] bemenaker 3 points 1 year ago

The picture they show is from terrapower, the company Bill Gates funded, which is a thorium reactor. Thorium liquid salt reactors are still difficult because of the metallurgy. I believe they were supposed to fit the small modular concept though.