I thought it was satire, before I look to the source.

What a waste of power. Somehow they went from "we're green tech!" to "fuck it, we need ALL the power" real quick. And for nothing.

109

For profit... somehow.

33
- They are making money off AI. Don't think they're not. I don't understand how, but these company's are getting profit.
  
  19
- Don’t forget that Microsoft isn’t some dumb company trying to jump on the AI bandwagon. They’re a cloud provider and Azure provides lots of AI options.
  
  Microsoft is one of the platforms raking in heaps of money from dumb companies trying to jump on the AI bandwagon. They’re the equivalent of the people selling MAGA shirts outside trump rallies.
  
  16
Nuclear is green

6
The plant is actually going to be renamed "Crane Clean Energy Center" so it's fine!

4

I can't wait for this AI bubble to pop.

I'm not saying that some parts of AI have utility - machine learning for medical scans will be a great thing for instance, but the "oooh new! shiny! venture capitalist, line-must-go-up" side of things can well and truly fuck off.

104

Exactly. I'm bullish on AI, I'm not bullish on what the mass market media calls "AI."

19
I don't think it will pop.

Everyone is trying to get in on the ground floor for actual AI. True AI will be as revolutionary as electricity and online porn.

11
- We are a long way off from true AI. You know how VR was a thing with the virtual boy and then the whole thing died for awhile until the oculus and vive revived the idea like 20 years later? And how VR is basically dead again because it's still not quite there? AI is basically like that. We'll get there eventually, but this current trend isn't going to be enough to get us to true AI. It'll go quiet again for awhile until there's some new approach that revives the hype again. Maybe the next phase will do it, but the current AI approach is a dead end from a true AI perspective.
  
  17
- Can you explain what you mean? True AI? Like AGI or something else?
  
  6

Why can corporations own nuclear plants? Aren't they people? Can I own a nuclear plant? Or am I just stuck building additional pylons?

61

AFAIK, There's nothing that says you can't make your own nuclear power plant. Just stuff forbidding you from obtaining nuclear material. Which would make it hard to operate a power plant. But you could still make one that doesn't do anything!

33
- Strictly speaking, anyone can apply for a license to build a plant but you do need a license. The whole thing is pretty regulated.
  
  13
- Reminds me of this dude that tried to make a reactor out of americium from smoke detectors.
  
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hahn
  
  7
Most nuclear plants are owned by corporations. Before the accident, Three Mile Island was owned and operated by Constellation Energy (now Constellation Nuclear) and EnergySolutions.

https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/reactors/ownership.php

30
You must construct additional pylons.

12
- Roses are read
  
  Violets are blue
  
  The only additional pylon i need is you 💜
  
  12

I mean... yeah this clearly sucks ass, but as a silver lining, maybe it'll rebuild interest in nuclear.

33

I don't want old ass nuclear power plants. I don't want new power plants in 25 years either. I want a solar panel on every single rooftop, and diversified municipal energy storage (batteries, molten salt, geothermal, etc).

14
- Old ass nuclear plants work well, and they are already built. I also want solar panels on every house, and micro turbines in every yard. How about we work with what we already know is clean and expand with new technology.
  
  24
- It is new... They aren't the original ones that were decommissioned...
  
  9
If they want to run AI in a responsible manner I can't say that I really have any solid complaints. I prefer if they don't use it to train my entire personality into a model but it is what it is

6

This is exactly what I've been advocating for. Nuclear power, especially if they lift the restrictions on fuel recycling, is the cleanest option we have besides solar and wind, and it's a technology that is fully developed and available now. Nuclear power is heavily regulated and is very safe these days, and is not reliant on rare earth metals like many solar panels still are.

15

You've been advocating for pointlessly wasting the output of an entire nuclear power plant during a time when an urgent decarbonization of energy is needed, to fuel the energy needs of a corporate monopoly running server farms providing a technology that's neither wanted or needed outside of niche use cases, following an online hype mixed with scams and rugpull startups that rival crypto's heydey?

20
- My original idea was for the AI companies to shell out for building new nuclear plants, but bringing an old one back online is a step in the right direction. I don't think the current "AI" projects are actually worth the resources they consume, but if they're going to exist, their creators should be shelling out for non-fossil fuel options to power them.
  
  10
- Advocates for clean energy, not nuclear
  Against a technology with a lot of hype, that also no one wants
  🤔😵‍💫
  
  1

a yes, it's going to be so fun when enshittification hits the power plant and it start leaking radioactive water in the lake

Edit: my issue is with tech companies owning power plants, be it nuclear, oil or gas, enshittification cold fuck all of them and cause catastrophic damage, other than that nuclear power is based

12

Safest power source per kWh. This is some boomer-ass scare mongering.

15
- Is the problem nuclear? Or the problem the fact that Microsoft AI bullshit needs a full ass nuclear power plant to run it?
  
  12
- I don't fear nuclear power, i fear tech companies especially those public
  
  6
They could just burn coal/oil/natural gas instead and for sure poison everything that way. Nuclear has a fighting chance.

8
oil spills too

7
- Don't give power plants to tech companies period lol, at least software can't fuck as many people and the environment as an oil or radioactive leak could
  
  3
As opposed to all the other non renewable sources of power cause cancer to those who live near by

5

AI whatever but nuclear yes pls

8

There's a difference between properly funded nuclear power under lab conditions and capitalistically bled-dry, money-before-safety , decrepit cash-grab reactor junkyards that end in leaving miles upon miles of land unusable for generations though.

1

Would be incredibly ironic if that thing melted down again and took MS's datacenters with it.

6

It was only a partial meltdown, some cooling systems failed and it was successfully contained! Safety precautions designed to stop a full meltdown and release of radiation succeeded.

I know that's not really the point of your comment but I feel like this particular incident has a lot of misinfo and I wanted to help elucidate what happened.

45
- Exactly. A properly run nuclear plant can be extremely safe.
  
  12
- This isn't true -- radioactive gases were leaked into the surrounding area. The containment vessel remained intact, and NRC concluded that no measurable harm was done, but there was definitely a release and that's why it was such a big deal. They evacuated children and pregnant women from the area in response.
  
  https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2010/ML20106F218.pdf
  
  10
Nuclear meltdowns are incredibly uncommon though.

15
- I also don't wish for that. We have enough fear mongering around nuclear power as it is.
  
  9
- It's not as uncommon as you might expect -- here is a list for the curious. And I don't mean to denegrate nuclear energy as a power source; it is vastly better than fossil fuels and safe when done correctly -- I have participated in the safe generation of nuclear power. But the ramifications of it being done incorrectly are severe to say the least, and everyone should be aware that we do commonly have issues with it, especially in aging facilities. We commonly extend plants decades beyond what their initial construction planned for.
  
  Edited to say I just realized you said meltdowns, not radioactive leaks, which I do agree with. Sorry for confusion
  
  3

Cool and normal.

4

Thank you Kanye

2

Dystopisn technocracy shit

3

Oh....

-1

So Microsoft will also be repsonible for taking care of the nuclear waste until it's not toxic anymore, right? Right??

-3

They've taken responsibility for all the arsenic and mercury released from the coal fired power plants they consumed energy from, so I have to assume that they will here too.

16