Amazon, Google and Microsoft Are Investing in Nuclear Power
www.nytimes.com
Large technology companies are investing billions of dollars in nuclear energy as an emissions-free source of electricity for artificial intelligence and other businesses.

My impression is that this is a PR push, designed to avoid having to invest in renewables, and let them keep on burning gas and coal, rather than something likely to come to fruition.

  • @[email protected]OPEnglish
    15•3 months ago

    Mostly:

    • New nuclear is really expensive
    • It also takes a long time to deliver
    • The new reactor examples in here consist of reactors from suppliers who haven’t done that before

    So it has the feel of a plan to promise to spend a lot of money several years from now, and get a lot of PR points today, and quietly cancel the project later.

    • BizzleEnglish
      4•3 months ago

      Well that is, indeed, wack. I appreciate your perspective, I can’t believe I missed the “corporations lying for money” angle. I’m usually on top of it.

      • @[email protected]OPEnglish
        2•3 months ago

        They’re talking about 5+ years on the new nuclear in these. And they haven’t done it before, so a 30% deadline slip is realistic.

        You can put up a lot of wind and solar in that time.

        • @[email protected]English
          3•3 months ago

          You can put up a lot of wind and solar in that time.

          Which needs a stable baseline to counteract lack of supply and/or a lot of lithium. And space.

          • @[email protected]OPEnglish
            1•3 months ago

            The existing large-scale batteries are largely lithium. There are a bunch of iron-chemistry ones and sodium-ion ones which have been deployed over the past year, with factories going up to scale them up. I’m not expecting to be limited by lithium availability for stationary batteries.