The U.S. government is shelling out a whopping $2.7 billion to three companies in an effort to strengthen domestic uranium enrichment, amid surging electricity demand from AI data centers.
The Department of Energy announced on Monday that it will award $900 million each to American Centrifuge Operating and Orano Federal Services, as well as General Matter, a nuclear startup backed by billionaire investor Peter Thiel.
The funding will be distributed through task orders over the next 10 years, under what the department described as a “strict milestone approach.”
Welcome back to the political spoils system
The Nazis are spending our money.
What else is new. They never stopped spending it.
Love me some nuclear investment.
It’s the best carbon-free base load power we have.
Too bad this is highly unlikely to benefit the public at large and just go to ensuring our tech overlords have enough juice for the surveillance state they are creating.
The cheapest choice for reliable power in the US is natural gas. Fossil fuels are often in the news for causing all kinds of issues. Therefore a statement like “this is highly unlikely to benefit the public at large” seems quite unfounded. That is, unless you don’t consider burning fossil fuels instead to be a harm.
If you give a shit about our future, investments in carbon-free power are to be celebrated.
Your missing my point. This is solely being driven by the need being created by data centers, not from any kind of environmental analysis. I have zero confidence the energy created from these projects will go to public infrastructure in a way that will drive down costs for the average American. This will likely solely benefit the tech oligarchs at the helm of these companies to keep their operational costs to a minimum.
Because AI is not about turning a profit, it’s about surveillance and if you give a shit about the future, that is not something you can forget.
We’re still burning coal in this country. If AI dies down and we shut down the coal plants because we have more nuclear, that’s a win
That ship has sailed. With renewables and storage nuclear makes no financial sense and dispatchable power doesn’t work well with base load generation.
Renewables can’t do it alone. Nuclear can be a large help.
Storage costs balloon when you go full renewable, because instead of just storing enough for the night, you need to charge up enough during the summer to last the winter since solar power dries up.
Having a constant 20% of power nuclear would decrease the need to make a huge amount of batteries, since you can serve the demand on a lower amount of sunlight.
But what about wind? It works in places that are windy and have space for it, and America doesn’t have super high voltage transmission to cover every area.
You just can’t connect everything to shore up needs of every area because the country is too big and we forgot how to build things
You just can’t connect everything to shore up needs of every area because the country is too big and we forgot how to build things
It’s called HVDC, it’s been in use for decades. Just admit you like nuclear because reasons and we’ll call it a day.
It’s not going to support 100% renewable usage. It is not built to transfer solar power from Nevada to Minnesota
Everything works better when you have baseline nuclear power, transmission losses decrease, storage costs decrease, coal and gas get phased out. Remember that batteries need to be replaced often and they are very much not green. Nuclear plants operate on the scale of decades before getting replaced.
Those are the reasons I like nuclear.
It is not built to transfer solar power from Nevada to Minnesota
This exists and is longer than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rio_Madeira_HVDC_system
Everything works better when you have baseline nuclear power
Nope. Baseline isn’t helpful when you’r dealing with dispatchable generation, I already mentioned this.
Remember that batteries need to be replaced often and they are very much not green.
Nope. I already mentioned that silicon ion is capable of thousands of charge cycles.
they are very much not green.
Nope. Not when you’re comparing it to the amount of concrete in a nuclear plant.
Like every other pro-nuclear person it’s all about feels with you. I’ve given you plenty of evidence, which you’ve rejected much like a cultist would do. I see no point continuing to discuss this with someone who has made an emotional decision to support nuclear in the face of all the evidence.
That’s in Brazil, though? What do you mean it exists
Cronyism. They always say “There’s no money for that” when it comes to helping people who need it, but as soon as it comes to helping their rich friends or building monstrosities of vanity, suddenly they find the money for it.
At this point, ordinary income-earners in america should just stop paying taxes, because they’ll never see that money come back to help them in anyway. It’s all getting funneled directly to the rich, who also happen to be receiving enormous tax cuts.
It’s stealing from the poor to give to the rich…
Just call it what it is — capitalism.
Some capitalists might argue on ideological grounds that government intervention is not a truly free market (although none would turn down government funds if offered, because they’ve sold their souls to the infinite pursuit of greed).
In reality though, most modern capitalism is crony capitalism. So the distinction loses meaning.
Cronyism implies someone with their hands on the levers of power pulling them to help their friends/accomplices, which this certainly is an example of.
tRump hands out favors to anyone who bows to him. It’s cronyism.
The reality is that never in the entire history of capitalism has there been a free market, and in fact there is nothing capitalists fear more than a truly free market.
The most successful companies inevitably become monopolies, which gives them near total control of the market, and the capitalist at the top trembles at the thought of competition arising that may unseat him. So he bribes a politician to make laws that favor him and allow him to find new ways to control the world and maintain his status. Eventually, inevitably, as is the case now, the state and the capital class become indistinguishable.
The free market is a myth, and I personally would rather have an economy that is planned for the good of the common person than the rich motherfuckers who enslave us.
In essence, I agree with you. Perhaps that just means that all capitalism is crony capitalism. It’s not that big of a distinction to my mind.
And yes, I too would much prefer an economy that’s planned for the good of the common person. Why does that feel more like a pipe dream with each passing day?
Fallout here we come. For one am not ready to die in Anchorage
Alaskan Front please