Japan looks to nuclear energy to power AI-powered datacenter boom The president of Japanese energy company Hokkaido Electric Power wants to restart one of its nuclear reactors due to a surge in demand from local datacenters. Susumu Saito asserted [PDF] the power company was working on compliance and regulation processes necessary to restart the Tomari Number 3 reactor. He called the reactor …
with about 4 fault planes in and around Japan and the events of Fukashima (although it could've been alot worse) I'm not sure this is a good idea. Although the amount of power they need I'm not sure solar/wind/wave will meet it so there's not much alternative I guess.
Molten salt reactors are inherently much safer, and less damaging in the long term. I'm hoping recent strides in MSR technology will enable their use in this type of application. I'm somewhat disappointed to read that they're wanting to restart old 'legacy' reactors, even if they have undergone upgrades.
Its even safer not too waste power in the first place.
It would appear basically everywhere people think the answer is always more more more.
More cars, more traffic, i promise more tunnels and freeways meaning more debt will fix traffic but it never does.
THe answer is not MORE power, the answer is stop wasting power to begin with.
Tell that to the tech manufacturers who no longer even have a real "Power" switch, it is now actually an electronic "standby" button as the systems remain powered to monitor...the power button. Of course we'll add a nice, stupidly-bright blue LED to that switch, too.
Static draw on the grid has gone up, possibly exponentially, as our modern electronics all remain 'on' as they await use. Even toaster ovens are digital now and they happily draw their standby power to rack up your bill.
Sooo let me get this right.....
Japan uses nuclear power plants that produce massive amounts of heat and a large byproduct of radioactive waste (that science can't recycle and can only dump underground), to make massive amounts of electricity for huge heat producing data server farms that also use up massive amounts electricity and water for cooling ? Real efficient.
Meanwhile after running out of space storing radioactive cooling wastewater from the last disaster, Fukushima turns to dumping the tritium laced water out of a pipe a mile or two off the coast back into the ocean. Good job guys! My ocean caught fish taste better now over here in the U.S.
"a large byproduct of radioactive waste"
To be more precise, about an olympic swimming pool in volume over a 1GW power plant's 60 year lifespan, which will be safer to handle with cottton gloves on in about 150 years and less radioactive than the original fuel in 450
As for the water, there's more tritium in the groundwater entering the boundaries of the plant than in the holding tanks and both are less than 5% of internationally allowable tritum levels in drinking water (there are a significant number of places in the USA where _natural_ tritium in the groundwater is higher than the allowed levels)
Part of the issue with Fukushima's "radioactive contamination" was that as soon as the accident happened, allowable levels in Japan were slashed by 90% - meaning fish that hadn't actually changed their radiation levels were suddenly "contaminated"
That's without even getting into the evacuation, where at least one patient was abandoned mid-operation by operating theatre staff and several people were dropped down hospital stairwells
FEAR of radioactivity is vastly more dangerous than the radiation itself in most cases
Japan's reactors all survived the 2011 earthquake without issue (the tsunami was a different matter but only one plant out of all the ones along that coast was damaged)
I think you can assume they're designed with the seismic effects in mind
Yes, molten salt would be better, but the reactors are there NOW and MSRs are 15-20 years away
How much was cleaning up nuclear, and how much was cleaning up all the other contaminations - oil, chemicals, salt, decaying human and animal tissues, etc., etc., etc. ?
Of course, if you think other sources of power are better, then please feel free to put forward rational arguments for them.
Fossil fuel: socialises the costs through CO2 emissions, along with all the other pollutants. Not to mention the costs from being reliant on other countries for your supplies - see how Germany's dependence on cheap Russian oil and gas worked out for them over the last 2-3 years !
Wind (& solar): socialises massive costs that I find most eco-zealots prefer to ignore. Given the intermittency, not to mention (for us, dunno if Asia experiences them) Dunkelflautes, there are massive costs put onto everyone to deal with that: Providing backup generation and/or storage (see Dunkelflaute - storage to cover those is impractical) is massively expensive which loads up everyone's energy bills. Alternatively, you engage in demand side management which for domestic customers causes "significant" costs (c.f. the debate over the value for money of our smart meter rollout) and for industrial customers typically means re-engineering their processes or just shutting down at peak times - how you feel if your employer told you that you were being laid off (without pay*) for a few days as there's no lecky ?
* Either the employer doesn't pay you, so it costs you in your pay packet, or they do pay you, but then go out of business as their prices have to go up and others with more reliable lecky steal their customers.
Let's see,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/03/10/after-five-years-what-is-the-cost-of-fukushima/
The 2026 estimate was $15 billion for cleanup and $65 billion for compensation
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/clearing-the-radioactive-rubble-heap-that-was-fukushima-daiichi-7-years-on/
In early 2018 the estimate was increased to $75.7 billion...
https://www.reuters.com/article/business/japan-nearly-doubles-fukushima-disaster-related-cost-to-188-billion-idUSKBN13Y046/
but then later increased it to around $188 billion...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56340249
where it seem to still stand today.
Compared to the $200 bil they're spending on increased energy costs in fossil fuels it's an even wash. But the damage to people's lives and the environment can't be reversed, so there's that. Plus the cleanup of nuclear sites, both created from processing and from accidents, have been socialized in the same manner as the other energy costs from wind and solar - but wind and solar don't have $188 billion socialized costs just for one incident. Sellafield is expected to cost £121 billion in cleanup costs by 2020; Hanford estimated cleanup costs as of 2016 was $113.6 billion plus another estimated $5.4 billion for stewardship until 2090.
There's really no comparison.
idog: Of course, if you think other sources of power are better, then please feel free to put forward rational arguments for them.
cow:
Did i say oil or gas or nuke or wind or anything was better ?
I didnt champion any energy source as better.
To answer your question yes i think using less power is much better in every way.
We are humans are extremely wasteful. Commuting for example is a fucking waste of time for billions of people. Products that last very short periods of time are another example. One time use plastic is another... All this stupidity.
The answer is simple cut down, and everyone wins.
Nuclear is again the flavour of the month in Australia because of our mining industry, both because we have tremendous reserves of uranium (and, incidentally, thorium) and because talking big about nuclear power is a convenient way for the coal mining industry to trick us into reducing/delaying investment in renewables.
So why is Japan buying into this nonsense. Is it anything more than simple regulatory capture?
AUstralians are idiots i know because i am one and see it every day.
My old city of Sdney is the perfect example. FUcking idiots commuting for hours from the other side of town like Campbelltown to the city or from the central coast to parramatta etc.
Its idiots all over, these very people shoudl be asking why am i commuting to sit at a computer that i could do at home for example. But nobody questions or tries and they are all losers wasting their life sitting in trains/cars/etc.
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