Modern AI data centers consume enormous amounts of power, and it looks like they will get even more power-hungry in the coming years as companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI strive towards artificial general intelligence (AGI). Oracle has already outlined plans to use nuclear power plants for its 1-gigawatt datacenters. It looks like Microsoft plans to do the same as it just inked a deal to restart a nuclear power plant to feed its data centers, reports Bloomberg.
Nuclear falls under ‘conventional’ - the PWR design of TMI is one of the oldest and most common types of nuclear reactor. It’s just another way of creating steam to drive a turbine which then generates electricity.
Nuclear is also anything but clean. People love to call nuclear ‘clean’ because its low in emissions, but that’s ignoring the requirement for either safe storage of radioactive material or reprocessing thereof, as well as the emission of radioactivity in the water cycled through the reactor.