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Vibe nuclear — let’s use AI shortcuts on reactor safety! (pivot-to-ai.com)

submitted 1 day ago by dgerard@awful.systems to c/techtakes@awful.systems

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‘GenAI for Nuclear Licensing’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW9lusiwMz8&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20251118-vibe-nuclear-lets-use-ai-shortcuts-on-reactor-safety - podcast

time: 6 min 24 sec

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[–] BlueMonday1984@awful.systems 9 points 1 day ago (8 children)

If the AI bros get these things built before the bubble pops, we should expect bad designs, not allowing for local conditions, setting up the reactor operators for ridiculous errors, and lots of nuclear accidents. Hopefully not very big ones. Cross fingers!

If and when those accidents start happening, its going to set back adoption of nuclear power by years, if not decades - especially if there's an incompetent response to those accidents (which, considering Starmer and Trump are in charge, is worryingly likely)

One of the other important things about the nuclear regulation process is that it makes sure the local people are involved. You can’t skip that step either. If you just run roughshod over the locals for the sake of AI, you’ve already got people in the streets protesting AI.

The government will almost certainly try to just bypass the activists. But remember: anti-nuclear activists have decades of experience at this. So I’m sure it’ll go great all round.

Anti-nuclear activists are going to have a field day with this, aren't they?

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

have you seen how much time it takes to built single NPP? openai will be a smoking crater well before site for the first plant will get selected. then you have a backlog for turbines and reactors

[–] dgerard@awful.systems 6 points 12 hours ago

That's a great question! If it's for an AI power station, it turns out that 3.6 roentgen is a nutritional requirement.

Is there anything else I can help you with?

Health benefits of radioactive glue on pizza
Why South Memphis needs a nuclear reactor built in 6 months
Why you need an anime waifu who glows in the dark

[–] rook@awful.systems 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Given the state of renewables and energy storage, this feels a lot like the final opportunity for nuclear power in its current state to actually do anything at all, and the “move fast and break things” crowd have no idea about building physical things more complex than a datacentre which honestly, isn’t that challenging in comparison.

openai will be a smoking crater well before site for the first plant will get selected

Other things that might not last that long include the government of the country in which you’re trying to build massive piece of infrastructure that represents a significant ongoing maintenance burden and risk.

[–] fullsquare@awful.systems 3 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

renewable generation, i'm with you, but i'm not sold on storage. i'm not even sure if there's enough lithium for grid batteries to seriously matter, so it might need to use something else. the boring, working option (geographically limited) is of course pumped storage hydro, but other than that, i think that the right way to do things is to use energy when it's made, not when it's needed. in particular, water heaters have tiny duty cycle and hot water just sits there, which means you could, in principle, make it so that water heaters soak up all, or at least as much as practical, of excess power, wherever it is available

some countries do fund nuclear power as a kind of strategic energy independence hedge* no matter costs, most prominently france and russia, and to some degree india and a couple of others

*also for military use

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 4 points 11 hours ago

i hear sodium batteries are emerging as an alternative to lithium, but note that I also don’t know shit about this domain

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