The EU’s goal of ramping up data centre capacity is already driving more investment in nuclear energy projects as the bloc seeks to decarbonise and secure energy security at the same time, says the global investment firm.

  • tardigrade@scribe.disroot.org
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    16 hours ago

    It will have to be seen whether the EU sees a nuclear boom, but globally we will see this I am afraid. The two countries leading the AI race at the moment definitely will: The U.S. government has reaffirmed nuclear power as a key pillar of its long-term clean energy strategy a year or so ago, with the revival previously retired reactors and extensions of aging ones.

    And China has joined a pledge to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050 which stemmed from the 2023 UN Climate Change Conference in Dubai, also known as COP28,

    … The installed [nuclear] capacity has been growing at a remarkable rate in China, the future home of just under half of the world’s nuclear reactors currently under construction … [China’s nuclear] capacity addition should accelerate [by 2030, according to China’s current five-year plan], as the State Council has been approving 10 or more new reactor units annually since 2022 …

  • HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org
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    16 hours ago

    Fact check: The number of nuclear reactors in the EU is constantly falling since end of the 1980s.

    The two main reasons are safety and costs.

    And no, 1000 reactors - developed underenormous cost pressure - producing 100 kW of energy each are not going to be safer than 10 reactors producing 10GW each, for similar reasons that 1000 vehicles transporting 4 people each along a busy motorway are not safer than 1 high-speed train transporting 1000 people.

  • Lickems@piefed.world
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    1 day ago

    The EU’s reaction to AI has been so sad. Hard to keep hope when the only sane region in the world is also fully on board.

    • eremophila@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      The region is hardly sane, it is already very nuclear.

      New Zealand has traditionally been about the sanest, their standards slipped in their last election though.

  • TootSweet@lemmy.worldM
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    2 days ago

    Yeah, right after they’ve burned a trillion gallons of diesel in diesel generators to power the data centers.