Microsoft hiring a nuclear power program manager, because AI needs lots of 'leccy Microsoft is hiring a "Principal Program Manager Nuclear Technology" to oversee its efforts to power datacenters with nuclear reactors. A job ad spells out that whoever gets the job "will be responsible for maturing and implementing a global Small Modular Reactor (SMR) and microreactor energy strategy." "This senior position …
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CANCEL
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As Paul Odgren once said (AAAS Member Community Digest February 12, 2020):
"Well, you have to mine and purify highly carcinogenic material, transport it over the highway and rail systems, refine it to the point where it can be condensed to nearly unstable concentrations, again transport it in its new, more dangerous form, constantly keep it from a catastrophic overheating disaster, protect it from enemies, then run the movie backwards to unload and decommission, then store everything perfectly safely for over twice as long as the pyramids have been in Egypt."
And you have only converted 0.5% of that stuff into actual energy to boot.
I expect much more from the reactor the Chinese (yes, them again) have set up in the desert that has no need for water at all, and also has no ability to do kaboom as you have with the pressurised water approach they're trying to keep alive with SMRs (water at 350º really, REALLY wants to be steam instead of liquid). Once validated, I expect that Thorium LFTR reactor concept to be miniaturised in the same way as current SMRs. Because that is much safer and converts 99.5% of its fuel into energy (as opposed to a rather wasteful 0.5%), I expect this to become the new SMR model, also because it produces much less waste and you don't need to shut the reactor down to refuel.
However, this will meet a LOT of obstruction from the US as China selling cheap energy in volume will utterly undermine US global monetary policy. The US are now starting their own programs, but they're about a decade behind in development (and it needs the kind of money they first didn't invest because the current nuclear approach was making a lot of money and plutonium) so in a fairly ironic twist they're going to have to steal IP from China to catch up. This is going to get ugly IMHO, because the idea of collaboration has been fully erased from even before Trump was let loose to comprehensively ruin the country and the remains of its status.
Drinking water and energy will be the battlegrounds of the rest of this century, against a backdrop of climate change.
The linked description sounds remarkably like the design that Kirk Sorenson has been promoting and was the US was doing way back. The downside of the design for the Hawks is it doesn't create weapons material in a sufficient quantity. The conspiracy theorist in me also thinks that since it's known to work, there won't be endless contracts for "studies" that don't require useful results.
The linked description sounds remarkably like the design that Kirk Sorenson has been promoting and was the US was doing way back
It is, that's the tragedy. The only ones who suddenly realised it had real value despite not also creating stuff to make bombs were the Chinese, and THEY invested the billions it took to turn it into production ready tech (read: they own most of the patents to the solutions you'd need to make it work). Kirk & friends were right, but nobody was listening until the people who came up with the very idea have all but passed away..
"Depends on your definition of what an SMR is.
The most common definition is something that can be built off-site and shipped on lorries to its intended location fully fueled. The fully fueled part is reckless in my mind. Some tend to class reactors under a certain electrical output as 'small', but that's assuming a whole bunch of things. The Shidaowan HTGR is 500MWt and a bit less than half of that in electrical output. Is it 'small'? I'd call something small that could charge 50 electric lorries at one time all at full power (1MW each).
Probably so. Either way, it does show MS are making a small contingency step against the chance that a renewables dominated public electricity grid will be unable to offer the reliability of power needed by data centres.
Not that I can see a captive SMR being financially viable.
just a few weeks ago.
The amount of power datacenters are sucking up just begs for local installations of SMR tech.
Any 'extra' power can be sold off to the proles. Indeed, the installation of self-contained datacenters with SMR would be another 'selling point' in areas that are struggling to get similar tech through the political bureaucracy.
No need for a UPS, or for a backup power source like generators.
They could be net negative for CO2 by covering the roof with solar panels and selling that power to the utility, which would help make up for existing CO2 positive data centers that aren't located next to hydropower or have enough renewable energy generation to cancel out their electrical usage.
Wot? Why does it need so much? The big players have already told the politicians that everyone's phone already has AI. They are just waiting for the go-ahead to get it to scan every image on those phones for illicit material so that the law can circumvent the need to break encrypted conversations. Does that mean all this crap about child protection is just so much pie in the sky?
They should be working on making their OS smaller and leaner so that it wastes less leccy not more.
Most nuclear regulatory agencies will not permit anything newer than 1970's tech so any 'expert' lobbyist will be able to tell MS that they are wasting their time and money. 10 minutes of consultant time plus what it will take to create an invoice and wait 90 days to get a notice that it wasn't sent in the correct format and will need to be resubmitted. I suggest CoD for this one.
Even if SMR's ever become a thing, which I am extremely skeptical about, I have even less belief that they will licensed to a company such as M$.
When I was 19 years old, I (and many of my fellow Navy Nucs) were certified to operate nuclear power plants, steeped in intense, “sink or swim” academic training followed by “hands on” training at real, operating, nuclear power plants. Navy Nucs are an elite and highly capable group of people and there are no ex-Navy Nucs.
If Microsoft wants the best success out of this effort, the person they should hire is a former Navy Nuc, who made it to the fleet (meaning operating a shipboard nuclear power plant), who also has deep experience in software engineering and product management after leaving the Navy.
Navy Nucs are trained how to learn anything quickly and with proficiency. They understand the science, engineering, operations, maintenance, and ever-changing regulations related to nuclear power. Navy Nucs know how to relate to the non-technical and technical stakeholders.
Of the thousands of experienced, former Navy Nucs, there are at least hundreds from which to choose.
Given that the key benefit of the incredibly expensive SMRs is (especially if used in numbers providing redundancy) reliability, I can't help thinking what would place THAT high a premium on reliability to pay that high cost, when massive batteries covers any plausible first-world peacetime grid issues for much less?
You know what would make me pay that premium? If my LIFE depended on uninterrupted supply. Folks, this is proof the AI has awoken and is now figuring out how to sustain its key needs.
Oh well, we had a good run.
Unless... if there's a defence spending aspect, that's a blank enough cheque. Maybe DoD said "that AI you're developing for us... we don't want it to fall over if there's a shooting war affecting the grid, what's your answer?"
