The AI industry is desperate for data centre power anywhere it can get it. They can’t get gas turbines without years of delay. Even the repurposed jet engine gas turbines they were really hoping wo…
  • David Gerard@awful.systemsOPMEnglish
    3·
    17 hours ago

    plutonium, looks like:

    US offers nuclear energy companies access to weapons-grade plutonium - Oct 21st https://www.ft.com/content/2fbbc621-405e-4a29-850c-f0079b116216 https://archive.is/Pc949

    The Department of Energy on Tuesday published an application that nuclear energy groups can use to seek up to 19 metric tonnes of the government’s weapons-grade plutonium from cold war-era warheads.

    …

    At least two companies, Oklo, which is backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, and France’s Newcleo, are expected to apply to access the government’s plutonium stockpile.

    may I just say:

    JESUS FUCKING CHRIST

    However, experts have raised concerns about the commercial use of plutonium and the risk of the material falling into the wrong hands.

    NO SHIT

    • fullsquare@awful.systemsEnglish
      4·
      17 hours ago

      no you can’t https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium_Management_and_Disposition_Agreement

      russians did their part, they basically gave that plutonium to their nuclear engineers for new things development to fuck around with and got a couple of working fast reactors out of that. americans did something that is very mckinsey coded and debated whether to burn it in pwr as mox like the french do or mix it with some magic powder and hide it in mountain which would be basically the same, right, and russians didn’t like it because you can reverse that, and it ended up with americans doing nothing, then russians withdrew (and they were right in doing this)

      tldr diplomacy by committee

    • fullsquare@awful.systemsEnglish
      3·
      16 hours ago

      weird that EDF didn’t want to buy it, maybe they also have surplus plutonium (reactor grade, so of worse quality)