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Samizdata quote of the day – the modular nuclear option edition “Nuclear has re-entered the chat because it’s the only energy source that can deliver enough clean, safe, round-the-clock electricity to feed AI. Nuclear is to AI what oil was to the Industrial Age. It’s the fuel for a new era of exponential progress.”
Stephen McBride and Dan Steinhart, from the Rational Optimist Society.
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I am not very interested in AI – but other people, whom I respect, tell me it is very important.
But regardless of AI – nuclear power, specifically fairly small modular reactors, would seem to be the best bet for many countries at this time – I am told that Japan is leading the way (although I do not know the details).
In the long term nuclear fusion will take over – but, for now, we have to proceed with nuclear fission – and the safest way to do that, appears to be fairly small modular reactors.
However, other people may wish to argue for much larger and more complex nuclear fission reactors – and I am certainly open to their arguments.
In the long term nuclear fusion will take over
In the long term, chap, we’re all going to die.
All of us
Long before nuclear “fusion” becomes a reality
The problem with power sources is not that they are (objectively) polluting or not. The problem is that KGB propaganda, now morphed into a kind of ‘church of woke’, has anathematised technology. This includes pretty much everything except wind and solar (they don’t even seem particularly keen on hydroelectric – try getting a new reservoir authorised). Never mind that photovoltaic power was invented about the same time as nuclear, and well after coal fired steam; it’s “clean” where the others are “dirty”. Or “blessed” vs. “sinful”.
None of this is logical, it’s political or, really, religious. Introducing new technologies will not solve a religio-political problem.
@david morris
Long before nuclear “fusion” becomes a reality
Of course I understand your point — for the past fifty years fusion power has been five years away, and today it is still five years away, though there do seem to have been significant advances.
But I will tell you as a computer programmer myself, AI has, for the past fifty years been five years away. But today it is here, and more powerful for sure than we ever imagined fifty years ago.
So, much as we might roll our eyes at these predictions that never come true, sometimes they do. One should never underestimate the capabilities of engineers backed by funders who have a lot of capital.
And it does offer significant advantages over fission, specifically that it does not use materials that can be made into bombs by wacky terrorist regimes, and that the “waste” product is not dangerous at all.
Of course one could be pedantic and say that we already have fusion power, since solar, wind and hydroelectric are all forms of fusion power.
“None of this is logical, it’s political or, really, religious. Introducing new technologies will not solve a religio-political problem.”
I’m pretty much convinced that if Elon Musk suddenly announced (and successfully demonstrated) that he’d invented a device that could suck energy from the ether and would give everyone a personal power station in their home with zero CO2 emissions at virtually zero marginal cost it would be denounced as unacceptable for mass market use and banned.