This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Are we eventually gonna get more fusion because billionaires are demanding more energy for their stupid projects?
Sure, knock yourselves out.
Are we eventually gonna get more fusion [...]
Either you mean fission, or the "more" could be omitted.
Most likely more fossil fuels because they’re faster and cheaper to roll out.
Lol. I just love it how so many people complain that Nuclear doesnt make financial sense, and then the most financially motivated companies just actually figure out that using a nuclear reactor completely privately is best.
Fuck sake, world.
Microsoft jumped fully on the AI hype bandwagon with their partnership in OpenAI and their strategy of forcing GenAI down our throats. Instead of realizing that GenAI is not much more than a novel parlor trick that can't really solve problems, they are now fully committing.
Microsoft invested $1 billion in OpenAI, and reactivating 3 Mile Island is estimated at $1.6 billion. And any return on these investments are not guaranteed. Generally, GenAI is failing to live up to its promises and there is hardly any GenAI use case that actually makes money.
This actually has the potential of greatly damaging Microsoft, so I wouldn't say all their decisions are financially rational and sound.
On the other hand, if they ever admit the whole genAI thing doesn't work, they could just sell the electricity produced by the plant.
Nuclear safety and penny-pinchers don't make good bedfellows.
Nuclear safety and ~~penny-pinchers~~ capitalism don't make good bedfellows.
ftfy. Possibly ironically, nuclear safety and communism (or totalitarianism) don’t work either. It’s odd, innit.
Honestly it seems crazy that companies that are so focused on short-term profits in 2024 would be able to make nuclear work.
It has been operated privately for a long time, unit 1 (this one) being operated by constellation energy. It stopped in 2019 because Methane had undercut it, and MS has now made an agreement to buy 100% of unit 1s output, but they aren't buying the facility. Most power generation in the US is private, for better or worse (usually worse).
I'm sure that everyone will recognize that this was a great idea in a couple of years when generative LLM AI goes the way of the NFT.
Honestly, it probably is a great idea regardless. The plant operated for a very long time profitably. I'm sure it can again with some maintenance and upgrades. People only know three mile island for the (not so disastrous) disaster, but the rest of the plant operated for decades after without any issues.
with some maintenance and upgrades.
Hopefully we can trust these tech bros to do that properly and without using their usual "move fast and break things" approach.
They are only buying 100% of the output. The old owners are still owning and operating it.
It's one of a hell of an old nuclear plant if it's the original three mile island one.
It is, yeah. It was in operation until 2019.
LLMs have real uses, even if they're being overhyped right now. Even if they do fail, though, more nuclear power is a great outcome
Once operational, the energy generated is cheap and will still be in demand
Personally? I don't think this is a bad idea. The less they drain from the grid, the less they consume fossil fuel.
The reactor isn't active right now, and they are a PWR design, and like the 1979 incident showed, they do fail safely.
So long as Microsoft pays for the operation of the plant? Seems reasonable to me if they're going to consume an assload of energy with or without public support.
I remember I had to do the 3 mile Island incident as part of my university degree. Apparently one of the biggest problems was that the control interface was hard to understand for the human operators.
So I guess if they just replaced the control system with a modern computer that would fix most of the problems. Obviously not a Windows system, otherwise we've just got the same issue all over again.
It was the SCADA view right? A lot of SCADA software is basically running on top of windows, though you typically would never see the desktop. Ignition at least is cross platform, but that is because the server is Java and Jython. A big part of why things are running on windows is due to OPC, which was traditionally all DOM and .NET. It is basically a standard communications protocol and is what allows your HMI/SCADA to communicate with PLCs. Otherwise, you use proprietary drivers and native PLC specific protocols.
SCADA programming/design is kind of an art and is usually written by an either an overworked engineer or someone who had far too much time on their hands. You basically build screens using specialized software, hook up buttons and UI elements to PLC signals, and pass some signals from the UI to the PLC. They are all heading in the Edge/iot/cloud/web based/techno-babble direction these days...
Ignition, programming software is free!: https://inductiveautomation.com
Some other random ones I have seen or used in the past: https://www.siemens.com/global/en/products/automation/simatic-hmi/wincc-unified.html https://www.aveva.com/en/products/intouch-hmi/ https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/products/software/factorytalk/operationsuite/view.html
So I guess if they just replaced the control system with a modern computer that would fix most of the problems
Introducing new Clippy For Reactors.
"It looks like you are trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown. I can help with that."
It continued operating for decades after the event. I'm sure they already solved that issue. It can still be improved I'm sure though.
we could use that extra energy to offset a bunch of existing carbon emissions now. This is still waste. If it's going to be started up again, and its energy used for something useless, it's waste.
That argument presupposes that the reactor would otherwise be brought back into operation, which I don't think is necessarily the case.
Microsoft would do it with or without the power plant. Make no mistake about that.
The same argument could be said if they made a 1GW solar farm, or any other form of power generation. Unless you have a way to legislatively prevent Microsoft from producing their own energy or prevent acquisition of decommissioned plants, I don't see how you can prevent waste.
Ironically, the power hungriness of AI might actually do good for the environment if it normalizes nuclear energy.
Quite the twist
Holy sunk cost fallacy, batman. How fucking much does it cost to operate an ENTIRE GODDAMN NUCLEAR REACTOR just to fuel a tech project that nobody wants???
Investors want it, because they want to ride the wave towards profit. It doesn't matter if it's good, sustainable or not. That is what matters.
that nobody wants
lol
I just hope this deal doesn’t involve using their AI to monitor the reactor …
So they fixed the leak?
Different reactor. Unit 2 partially melted down, there's no turning it back on. Unit 1 continued running after Unit 2's failure, and was only shut down because it became economically unviable
Oic
