this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2024
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I am suprised to see all the negativity. I for one think this is awesome and would love to see SMRs become more mainstream.
How wonderful would it be if the ultimate effect of the AI fad was to use the tech industry’s billions to install tons of carbon free power generation?
Are there no emissions during mining and at eol digging and maintaining a storage?
Of course there are, because mining and construction are powered by the old stuff. That doesn’t seem like a compelling downside to building things that generate clean power, since that’s a downside to building literally anything.
Are you implying there is a form of energy that doesn't?
Do they store wind turbines after EOL? I thought they'd just get scrapped and recycled.
The turbine blades are made of carbon fiber. There is no process in effect to deal with them. Too big to crush, not worth scraping or recycling. They all go landfilla.
There currently are processes to deal with them, multiple companies are working on the problem.
Current solutions include shredding them and reconstituting into some sort of alternative building material, chemically separating the parts of the composite and creating recycled resin, and mechanically separating and sorting apart the different materials which are then recombined for alternative use.
This is a good place to look at recent american efforts, but there is more recent information available elsewhere: https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/wind-turbine-materials-recycling-prize
The emissions are negligible on the grand scheme of things, especially compared to fossil fuels. The manufacturing of solar panels isn't the cleanest either.
What's the grand scheme of things mean to you? If we average it out over 40 years? How does nuclear even fit in when solar and wind are cheaper? Nuclear plants don't provide on demand energy to fill in the gaps, they provide energy constantly.
The only reason it works for microsoft is because they plan to use all that energy consistently. But besides that why should we trust a for-profit company to do anything safely in the first place? Do we have a long history of companies being regulated well or self-regulating well?
The nuclear industry is heavily regulated by the government via the NRC, but they impose even stricter regulations upon themselves. Solar and wind are cheaper, but they are less reliable. A grid comprised of a mix of solar and wind, bolstered by nuclear is the most effective and least environmentally harmful option that we currently have.
I think the negativity is more about it being used for AI than to solve any important problems with the world.
Expecting corporations to “solve important problems in the world” is foolish though. You should expect your government to tax them fairly so that they can work on people problems and maybe it takes corporations a few years longer to afford their own fleet of nuclear power stations.
Man imagine a world where that could have been what we were voting on next month.
Governments aren't going to solve these problems either because they're 100% for sale. Only we can solve them, through direct action.
Why? It just sounds nice bouncing around your head for a few seconds?
I agree, and it is possibly the only good thing to come out of AI.
Like people asking "why do we need to go to the moon?!".
Fly-by-wire (ie pilot controls decoupled from physical actuators), so modern air travel.
Integrated circuits (IE multiple transistors - and other components - in the same silicon package). Basically miniaturisation and reduction in power consumption of computers.
GPS. The Apollo missions lead to the rocket tech/science for geosynchronous orbits require for GPS.
This time it is commercial.
I'd rather the power requirements were covered by non-carbon sources. However it proves the tech for future use.
For a similar example, I have a strong dislike of Elon Musk. He has ruined the potential of Twitter and Tesla, but SpaceX has had some impressive accomplishments.
Google are a shitty company. I wish the nuclear power went towards shutting down carbon power.
But SOMEONE has to take the risk. I wish that someone was a government. But it's Google. So.... Kind of a win?
Is nuclear not?
I forgot what I was trying to say there.
I think it's along the lines of "I'd rather we didn't need a ridiculous amount of new power, but at least it's being covered by non-carbon sources".