I wonder what the failure rates will look like. In data centers, with the astonishing number of harddrives they need, mean-time-between-failures is often measured in seconds. If AI starts consuming more and more energy from these SMRs, we will naturally have to see an increase in number for them. Their MTBF will hopefully be in years, but the law of large numbers could be interesting to deal with.
SMRs offer great potential as a green energy source. I hope that as these highly visible and influential mega corporations adopt nuclear the stigma toward it will fade away. We are no longer living in the 3-mile Island/China Syndrome era of nuclear energy. There’s a terrific pro-nuke documentary by Oliver Stone (yes, Oliver Stone) that came out in 2023 and is worth watching, called “Nuclear Now.” Here’s the trailer: https://youtu.be/wg20jTQLbT4?si=iZUFpadWsHRQuhyr
I agree, we are no longer living in the era of Three Mile Island. Lots has changed and better guardrails are in place now. Thank you for sharing the link to the trailer of the documentary. Had no idea there was one by Oliver Stone.! Any idea where can I watch the full documentary?
I remember seeing some documentary about 5-10 years ago where Bill Gates was talking about this Molton Sodium Reactor in the western United States somewhere. They were talking about how much safer it was because the reactor used Molton Sodium instead of water? I don't remember the article very well but apparently this technology has just been sitting stagnant waiting for something like this to happen. Good news.
Yeah there has been much progress on the cooling methods for the reactor. The Molten Salt coolants can operate at lower pressures and higher temperatures - thus increasing efficiency. Then there is Liquid Metal coolant which is better at thermal conductivity and operate at lower pressures (thus avoiding risk of high pressure failures). Another one is Gas Coolant - it used gases such as helium as coolant to transfer heat. Such reactors can achieve high temperatures that can increase the efficiency of electricity generation.
AI seems to have acted as a trigger for people to start looking at such nuclear reactors favourably which have better safety mechanisms in place as compared to earlier ones.
I wonder what the failure rates will look like. In data centers, with the astonishing number of harddrives they need, mean-time-between-failures is often measured in seconds. If AI starts consuming more and more energy from these SMRs, we will naturally have to see an increase in number for them. Their MTBF will hopefully be in years, but the law of large numbers could be interesting to deal with.
That’s a good point. MTBF numbers could go off the charts with SMR powered energy for these AI data centres
SMRs offer great potential as a green energy source. I hope that as these highly visible and influential mega corporations adopt nuclear the stigma toward it will fade away. We are no longer living in the 3-mile Island/China Syndrome era of nuclear energy. There’s a terrific pro-nuke documentary by Oliver Stone (yes, Oliver Stone) that came out in 2023 and is worth watching, called “Nuclear Now.” Here’s the trailer: https://youtu.be/wg20jTQLbT4?si=iZUFpadWsHRQuhyr
I agree, we are no longer living in the era of Three Mile Island. Lots has changed and better guardrails are in place now. Thank you for sharing the link to the trailer of the documentary. Had no idea there was one by Oliver Stone.! Any idea where can I watch the full documentary?
I remember seeing some documentary about 5-10 years ago where Bill Gates was talking about this Molton Sodium Reactor in the western United States somewhere. They were talking about how much safer it was because the reactor used Molton Sodium instead of water? I don't remember the article very well but apparently this technology has just been sitting stagnant waiting for something like this to happen. Good news.
Yeah there has been much progress on the cooling methods for the reactor. The Molten Salt coolants can operate at lower pressures and higher temperatures - thus increasing efficiency. Then there is Liquid Metal coolant which is better at thermal conductivity and operate at lower pressures (thus avoiding risk of high pressure failures). Another one is Gas Coolant - it used gases such as helium as coolant to transfer heat. Such reactors can achieve high temperatures that can increase the efficiency of electricity generation.
AI seems to have acted as a trigger for people to start looking at such nuclear reactors favourably which have better safety mechanisms in place as compared to earlier ones.
If AI can drive a Nuclear Renaissance then I think it'll be worth all the drama.