nuclear-news

An Unholy Alliance: billionaire technocrats delight in planning Artificial Intelligence to run nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons!

New Startup Looks To Blend AI And Nuclear Energy, Oil Price, By Haley Zaremba – Jul 15, 2023

• AI’s increasing role in the energy sector is challenged by its own high energy demands.
• Sam Altman proposes a symbiotic relationship between AI and nuclear energy to address this issue.

……The future of the global energy sector is in the hands of Artificial Intelligence. ……..

…………..But the relationship between AI and energy goes two ways. AI doesn’t just present opportunities to the energy sector; it also presents significant challenges – one of which is the huge amount of energy that AI itself needs for operational purposes. In some cases, the energy footprints of singular AI training models have equaled that of 125 New York-Beijing round-trip flights, or the lifetime carbon footprint of five cars.

Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI – the now (in)famous firm behind ChatGPT – thinks that nuclear energy will play a key role in keeping AI’s carbon footprint in check. “The AI systems of the future will need tremendous amounts of energy and this fission and fusion can help deliver them,” Altman was recently quoted in the Wall Street Journal. Altman also expressed that he thinks that AI will have some positive implications for nuclear-system designs as well, creating a kind of symbiotic AI-nuclear relationship. This is not a new idea – for years now, researchers have been looking into the various ways that AI and machine learning can be integrated into nuclear power production for a more efficient, less expensive, and safer nuclear energy sector.

Altman is clearly serious about his hope for nuclear energy’s role in the future of the energy and technology sectors. Just this week, it was announced that Oklo, an AI-integrated startup specializing in “nuclear microreactors” will go public in 2024.

Oklo is valued at around $850 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. The company expects that its innovative microreactors will be ideal for military applications where connection to an existing power grid isn’t possible,…………  Oklo has already secured $50 million in funding, $420,000 in grants from the Department of Energy (DOE), and a permit to build its first microreactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, the nation’s leading center for nuclear research. The pilot project is slated to come online by 2026 or 2027.

…………………………………Altman is the just latest in a long line of tech billionaires investing in nuclear energy. High-profile proponents of nuclear power include Elon Musk and Bill Gates……..more https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/New-Startup-Looks-To-Blend-AI-And-Nuclear-Energy.html

July 17, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | technology, USA