AI’s Energy Demands Threaten a Nuclear Waste Nightmare

Air energy demand threatens nuclear waste nightmare

By Michael Riordan Edited And Vergano

Long down, the US nuclear industry has the hope of the resurrection in both areas of his biggest failure: Three-mile island Pennsylvania and Hanford site In the state of Washington. Nuclear energy, industry claims will help meet the demanding demands of data centers and the AI ​​economy. However, a wrong turn does not resolve unresolved radio resolutions that cannot be solved.

In September Plans that announced constellation energy Microsoft, to restart a proterred reactor by Microsoft, the Microsoft has prosthesioned. It will require many power gigawatts for extensive AI calculations to expand the fleet of data centers. Amazon followed the suit In November he announced that he will invest $ 334 million in Hanford (SMRS) modular reactors (SMRS), the world of Plutonium production facility.

Google and Meta also expect to bring nuclear power again. In October 2024 Google announced Eventually, it plans to buy 500 Megawatt Electricity in Kairos Power, in Oak Ridge, Tenn, SMR, Tenn. And Facebook parents Meta is looking for offers for nuclear power plants for its data centers.

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These technological giants recognize that the next generation of microprocessor to be used for AI calculations requires electricity oods to power and cool. A single Nvidia Blackwell ChipFor example, they can draw two kilowatts, more than necessary for a typical house. Thousands of thousands of cram servers within a data center, and they will need as much power as a small city.

The so-called hyperscale date centers are more than 100 megawatt (100 mw). And that power must be cheap, stable and reliable.

The December 2024 report of the U.S. Department of the National Laboratory of Lawrence Berkeley is particularly enlightening. Growth Use of US data center energy For the next five years, they have pointed out, “the power demand for data centers aged 74 and 132”. “This would represent the 7th to 12 percent of the US electricity consumption for 2028.

Where does it come from on earth? Challenges If electric utilities face, to meet other electricity supply needs, including electric vehicles, it is surprising that great technologies are returned to the atomic nucleus. But the power request described in the Does report should build or revive the equivalent of a three-year-old reactors of the three-year-olds in the next five years. That’s impossible.

A few years ago Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft ordered It is not to increase carbon dioxide atmospheric levels. It is increasingly difficult to achieve, their data centers “to explode electricity consumption. So they have started to return to nuclear power to avoid this thorny problem. That’s a big mistake.

Nuclear energy is a source of energy without carbon emissions, but it is almost a clean source of energy, and is certainly no Renewable. Uranium are throughout the supply chain, they are radioactive intends to enrich fuel rods or pellet options. In South Texas, for example, Landlords worry about pollution Underground water near uranium mining.

Since 1989, DOE has spent hundreds of billion dollars to clean the original nuclear complex, including Garganuan Oak Ridge Factory that enriched a large part of uranium used for commercial nuclear power. Despite the decade of the lady, the department has not yet completely cleaned and disassembled, dismantle Very radioactive waste tanks Hanford’s plutonium processing has gone out.

A Nuclear fuel warehouse and possession In fact, the unresolved unresolved challenge of the US nuclear industry is decisive. More than 90,000 tonnes of waste are stored in 77 sites in 35 states: the amount of more than 2,000 tonnes increases.

Small modular reactors, promoted Microsoft creators invoice doors And others will only add to this growing burden. Former US Nuclear Regulation Commission (NRC) Chair Stanford University have indicated allison MacFarlane and Rodney C. Ewing“In some cases, these new reactors can deteriorate, creating more expensive waste, more new types of waste or more waste, more times.”

Elsewhere, MacFarlane stressed The procedural and practical difficulties of new technological reactor nucleus results in achieving NRC approval and getting commercial success. Shortly after receiving the NRC certificate in 2023, for example, much Nuscale SMR project was abandoned The planned construction costs have doubled $ 9.3 billion. Aside from the waste problem, trading is probably successful during a decade.

But AI Gold Rush faithful, if left uncontrollable, will establish requested power supply from the request. Meanwhile, electricity rates will be essential for supply and demand law. The energy crises Looming explains great technological efforts to slow down the shadows of fossil power plants and revive closed reactors.

Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft managers should take a deep breath and start re-evaluating their options. Do they really need to build and upgrade data centers at such pace? Or is this, the result of the devil-hindhost ai weapons, the result of bitter races, the latest advances in semiconductor technologies starred?

And what they hugged with really clean and renewable energy sourcesMainly solarWind and geothermal? Yes, the variability of solar and wind energy makes a bad match with stable power of data centers. But energy storage has made a long way recently and has a prosperous future. And the Chinese Deepseee’s Last Success of the AI ​​program shows this The efficiency of the software will have an important role In that effort.

The dark clouds expired over nuclear power, especially the problem of unresolved waste, renewable alternatives are worth a refretion.

This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views indicated by the author or authors are not necessarily American scientific.