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Will nuclear power the AI boom?
If AI meets the multi-trillion dollar hype, the world will need to produce billions more megawatts. Natural gas is the dominant energy source in the U.S. today — a title long-held by notoriously dirty coal. Renewables have been rising to meet the challenge, however, sun and wind can be intermittent and unpredictable.
The U.S. nuclear sector has been stagnant for decades, likely due to negative public perception from previous meltdowns over Three Mile Island, Fukushima, and Chernobyl. Decades later, modern reactor designs and stringent safety regulations have made nuclear exceptionally safe.
In fact, Three Mile Island recently marked a historic nuclear renaissance (after decades of restriction) in the U.S. In this case, driven by the fusion of AI with exorbitant energy demand. Or as Reuters recently reported:
“The hulking energy demands of machine learning prompted the United States to sign off on reopening, opens new tab a mothballed atomic energy plant at the infamous Three Mile Island, to follow another one due to be restarted in Michigan next year.”