Technology

58759 readers

4718 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

145

Tech bosses think nuclear fusion is the solution to AI’s energy demands – here’s what they’re missing. (theconversation.com)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Dot@feddit.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

77 comments fedilink hide all child comments

nuclear power produces long-lived radioactive waste, which needs to be stored securely. Nuclear fuels, such as the element uranium (which needs to be mined), are finite, so the technology is not considered renewable. Renewable sources of energy, such as solar and wind power suffer from “intermittency”, meaning they do not consistently produce energy at all hours of the day.

fusion technologies have yet to produce sustained net energy output (more energy than is put in to run the reactor), let alone produce energy at the scale required to meet the growing demands of AI. Fusion will require many more technological developments before it can fulfil its promise of delivering power to the grid.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago) (1 children)

Yes, they need heating in winter... for a tiny population. And they have very little in the way of data centres.

Again, these are only suitable depending on the environment you're in. E.g. pumped water storage is only effective if you have the terrain to allow for it (a large hill or mountain with space for a large body of water).

I never said lithium was an outright requirement. I said batteries can't currently take the planet off of fossil fuels, then I said that other energy storage systems are very dependent on the location.

E.g. despite there being a lot of rainfall in the UK, there are only 3 places suitable for pumped water energy storage. It can't be relied upon for powering a country unless you're phenomenally fortunate with geography.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Well, I can think of the inverse - separating a piece of coastline and pumping seawater out when you have excess energy, letting it back in via turbines to get energy. In that context UK does have fitting terrain, it's just underwater.

Seawater is very nasty to machinery though.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Tidal power continues to be researched, but it's proving very difficult, currently completely unviable. It certainly cannot replace all non-renewable energy.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago

I didn't mean tides. I meant a dam separating an area, from which water is pumped out to "store" energy, and let in through generators to "spend" energy.