OK, Charles, I feel like it's been a while since we've touched base on this whole AI phenomenon. So Fringe Mini this week, I decided to kind of look at some things going on with AI, not necessarily AI itself, if that makes any sense. But some of the things going on around it and not necessarily in a bad way, just so everybody knows that ahead of time. Well, perhaps. Let's see. Perhaps. Yes.
In the end. That's fair enough. OK. This article comes from CBC posted on October 29, 2024, written by Mehek Mazar. And it is titled Microsoft, Google and Amazon turn to nuclear energy to fuel the AI boom. Big tech companies are scrambling to secure nuclear energy deals worth billions of dollars in order to meet the growing demands of generative artificial intelligence. But critics say they need to rethink that and slow down.
Well, tech companies have gotten away with the lot just because it's a new area. The approach tends to be move fast and break things and start ups and Silicon Valley. And so what worries me is that approach transposed to nuclear energy because nuclear energy is something that has to involve a lot of care, says Sasha Luchoni, AI researcher and climate lead at New York based AI developers, hugging face.
In September, Microsoft announced their plans to purchase power from the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, where the worst nuclear incident in US history took place in 1979. The site shut down its remaining operating unit in 2019, but plans to reopen for this project. Last week, Google announced a deal with nuclear startup Kyro's Power buying 500 megawatts of electricity from seven small modular reactors, SMRs, that have yet to be built.
And just a few days ago, Amazon struck a similar deal with startup X Energy. Small modular reactors are considered safer than traditional nuclear plants due to their smaller size and power output. According to the proponents of the technology, they're also touted as cheaper and faster to build, which will ideally provide the tech companies with a source of renewable energy.
In Google's case, as early as 2030, companies are racing towards nuclear because they are using exponentially more power now due to the upsurge of generative AI use. Both Google and Microsoft missed their net zero emissions goals for 2024, a first because these companies tend to set goals they can meet according to Luchoni. Quote, this year, they're like, Oh, oops, AI caught us by surprise.
And quote, she said, some see the Microsoft, Google and Amazon investments in nuclear energy as a positive step towards reducing big tech emissions. Quote, I think all of that is great for the environment. And quote, said, Jacopo beyond Giorno, a nuclear science and engineering professor and director of MIT's Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems.
The AI systems are trained on large data sets and program with specific rules and algorithms so that each request the identify patterns in order to provide an answer. Quote, they're trying to stick that into anything that moves, anything that a customer can interact with, and quote, Luchoni said, of the big tech companies.
Generative AI takes more power to perform than, for example, streaming shows and scrolling through your social media feed, says Luchoni, who has research AI's environmental costs and is currently developing a rating system for the technology. Put another way, one chat GPT query uses as much electricity as a light bulb needs to be on for 20 minutes, according to a research cited by NPR.
Luchoni says companies should be mandated to release how much energy its AI tech uses and to allow users to opt out of using it. Once there is more information about Generative AI's energy usage, she says the government will be able to develop regulations around its use. Quote, we should be curbing the demand.
And quote, she said, instead, as demand rises, tech companies are investing in nuclear energy and building more AI data centers, which are the mega warehouses full of servers, routers and cooling systems that power AI. Quote, there's going to be a couple of years when the demand is going to be outstripping any kind of renewable energy supply. And quote, Luchoni said, tech companies have been actively looking for renewable energy sources to sustain the rapid growth of Generative AI.
In 2023, Google built a geothermal power project in Nevada to power its nearby data centers. And Amazon recently became the world's top corporate buyer of solar and wind energy, which I did not know. Good for them, I guess. There's some random knowledge for you. Yeah. Part of random people. Which is at the end of the day, the whole one of the main reasons we do this podcast.
Is it really is mostly forest and near the is near the order of cable where you need to accost people with your random knowledge and questions. That's where you need all the knowledge. Obviously we've shot. We've fallen short in the past and really need to make up for it. Yeah, it's obvious. But we're making up one small step at a time, apparently. Quote, the use of nuclear reactors is almost like an ideal energy source. And that's because nuclear reactors produce electricity 24 seven.
And quote, beyond Giorno said beyond Giorno believes that it is quite realistic for nuclear power to run constantly without carbon emissions. He says that the small modular reactors that the companies will be using produce less energy than the larger reactors currently on the grid, but are reliable enough to power the data centers that perform AI calculations.
Wind and solar energy comparatively need to be backed up with energy storage batteries and that will add to the cost of land usage associated with the power generation. Quote, building a new nuclear plant is expensive. The good news is that once you have built it and authorized it, then the marginal cost of operating and maintenance plus fuel are actually pretty low and predictable over decades.
And quote, as for concerns, I guess I can say beyond Giorno because they didn't put it there, but two days, I'm pretty sure. As for certain as for concerns about radiation from the SMR as beyond Giorno says he has virtually none due to the smaller size and energy output that conventional nuclear power plants. They also have passive safety systems, according to one proponent of Canada's investments into SMRs. Quote, if things go wrong, there's no need for human
intervention. Things just shut down. And so that's probably one of the biggest differences. And quote, Romina Velshi, former president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission told CBC's Edmonton AM earlier this month. The reactor at Thromel Island is expected to be back up and running by 2028, pending approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Google's deal with Cairo's power projects this first SMR to be ready by 2030, whereas Amazon and X Energy are planning for 2039.
However, the first SMR project in North America is under construction right now, operated by Ontario Power Generation at the Darlington plant in Clarington, Ontario. It's expected to be the first in North America to go online. It is scheduled to become operational by 2029. Quote, if the investment is there and the need is there, the demand is there. It's absolutely feasible. And quote, Bon Giorno said. So that's the article.
I do have one more thing to add just before we move on and talk about this, Chelsea, just because there's another article that's super short and I wanted to include it, just because it's somewhat on the same page. This one comes from iPhoneincanada.ca, which I'm not going to say is a reputable source. iPhone in Canada. Yes. OK. Just wanted to make sure. This may make it the whole, this may be its only appearance on this podcast. And in fact, I'm now realizing.
Now, I'm realizing now that they also just include that this is coming from the Financial Times, but you're regardless. We're moving forward. This article was written six days ago by Uisman Koreshi. One article from iPhone. It was stolen six days ago. Maybe I don't know. By Uisman Koreshi, Rare Bees stole Meta's nuclear-powered AI data center plans.
So Meta's on the same page, ambitious to establish a nuclear-powered AI data center in the US, has encountered a significant obstacle due to the discovery of a Rare Bees species on the proposed site. The Financial Times is reporting and also iPhoneincanada.ca or whatever it is. The initiative aimed to partner with an existing nuclear power plant to supply emissions-free electricity for a new data center dedicated to artificial intelligence operations.
However, the identification of a Rare Bees species on the land designated for construction has introduced environmental complications. This setback occurs as other tech giants, including Amazon, Google, and Microsoft, have secured agreements with nuclear power operators to meet the escalating energy demands of their data centers. Despite this challenge, Meta remains committed to exploring carbon-free energy solutions, including potential future collaborations evolving nuclear power.
I think that's far enough for that one. I just wanted to include them because that's a good part of the story. Maybe the bees get to survive. They probably don't because a billionaire is behind this getting built. So he probably gets to last day. Yes. Now we know about iPhoneincanada.com. I'm sorry. I'm going to have to listen to the last part. And sorry, Chelsea. What? .ca. I don't want you going to that other website. I don't know what trash is there.
To finish my thought, I did not listen to that last part because I was too busy looking at the news articles on iPhoneincanada.ca. I'll have to listen to what I wanted to. It does not have different news categories. It has Amazon, deals and shop apple.ca. Yeah. And the category for Tesla. Anyhow, it's no good. So I'm sad that I missed that. All I know is he said something about bees at the end.
Well, I mean, if we take nothing else from this, Meta may be responsible for nuclear bees or radioactive bees in the near future. That's probably a good one to see. Does that make them stronger? Well, usually it makes them cancer riddled. So. Well, that's not good. We need those bees. If it made them stronger, perhaps I'd be on board, but it's seemingly, that summary, I don't think I like it.
Does this have anything to do with our chain emails that we're getting and can't delete and as well as our old photographs that we can't delete from the cloud? Well, I don't think so. And I know we talked about that.
We talked about that a while back in one of the fringee minis that a lot of our just like mundane uses of the usage of the interwebs ends up contributing to global warming in ways we didn't realize that pales in comparison to the actual power needed for AI, despite the fact that nobody really needs AI. So why? Like is it because AI is thinking? Why does it take so much power for AI? Because it's a language model and it takes a lot of power to be able to actually come up with those sentences.
Based on all the information that's been fed. So it's like thinking and it's like, it's not thinking. I cannot stress enough that it is not thinking. It's like it needs calories to be able to generate output. Sure. It's blood for the blood God. Okay. Okay. So definitely not alive anymore than a light bulb is alive. Yeah. And that makes it great that they explained that it uses as much electricity as a light bulb.
I wish they would have specified it for talking about like incandescent bulbs or like the newer light bulbs that are pretty energy efficient or I don't know, maybe we're talking about a kerosene light bulb for some reason. Maybe. I don't think they exist, but maybe that's what we're talking about. I mean, they could if you really wanted it to, but who wants it to unless you're a ghost on a lake. Yeah, that's fair.
Anyhow, the reason I really wanted to like bring this to our attention is because it is in the AI realm and it is interesting that we're going back into nuclear power and I don't have a problem with nuclear power per se. Like in itself, there's no real issues with it that can't be offset. However, the problem I always have and it comes back to our entire capitalistic model that everything needs to be run for a profit. And I just don't trust nuclear power being run for profit.
Yes. Because that can be a reason. Yeah. We all know. And I find it particularly apt that they're in fact going to be using Three Mile Island for Google Energy. Yeah, that's the whole sentence in itself seems wrong. Yeah. Yeah, I guess of all the energies, that one's one of the, I don't want to say the wrong thing, greenest. Compared to... Kind of. It's quasi-green in that it isn't renewable exactly, but it's sustainable over an extremely long time period.
And who knows how long we're going to be here for that because as covered in the article, we are slowly destroying the environment. Yeah, but we'll have nuclear bees. So it could be... That could be good. It could be cancer riddled. We don't know. It sounds like they're weaponizing bees. It's only a matter of time. It really was a matter of time. And frankly, we don't even have a Beeman comic book as far as I know.
Beeman. And now I'm kind of stuck on what the superpowers would be and what the Archangel is. What the Nemesis would be, but you guys got 48 hours to think this stuff up. Send it to us. We got an email. You guys don't use it, but we got it. Anyhow, bye.