Three Mile Island is proof AI and Nuclear are a match made in heaven π
Welcome toΒ AI CollisionΒ π₯,
In todayβs collision between AI and our world:
- AI is buying up all the nuclear
- $3 trillion of value talks about the future of AI
- A US and Australia deal is not going to fix the supply crunch
If thatβs enough to get the reactors fired up again, read onβ¦
By the way, I am now back from leave, and wow what a huge couple of weeks we’ve had in AI while I’ve been off! Of course I’m going to lead with the biggest story in AI right now…and maybe even the biggest story in AI ever!
So let’s crack on…
AI Collision π₯
“…the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power plant operating history.”
That’s how the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission described the Three Mile Island accident in March 1979.
Three Mile Island was a nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania that through a series of failures in its operating procedures and safety redundancies led to the nuclear core of its number 2 reactor being exposed and undergoing a partial meltdown leading to the release of radiation into the environment.
Thankfully, the radiation release was so little there has been no linking of the incident to any long term public health problems. Although it did lead to heightened nuclear safety and engineering design, it also is still recognised as one of the world’s major nuclear failures and is regularly used as a reason why nuclear energy is too dangerous as an energy source.
The clean up of Three Mile Island lasted from 1979 immediately after the incident through to 1993. The plant did reopen it’s number 1 reactor in 1985 but then retired the entire facility again in 2019.
A report in 2019 about its closure noted the decommissioning of the plant would take 60 years to complete.
Except…
Last week, only five years into its decommission timeline, Three Mile Island had a lifeline thrown to it…by Microsoft.
In an extraordinary deal, Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) one of the world’s largest nuclear energy operators announced it had entered a 20 year power purchase agreement with Microsoft.
Constellation’s announcement said,
Constellation (Nasdaq: CEG) announced today the signing of a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft that will pave the way for the launch of theΒ Crane Clean Energy CenterΒ (CCEC) and restart of Three Mile Island Unit 1, which operated at industry-leading levels of safety and reliability for decades before being shut down for economic reasons exactly five years ago today. Under the agreement, Microsoft will purchase energy from the renewed plant as part of its goal to help match the power its data centers in PJM use with carbon-free energy.
The announcement went into detail about the potential economic impact of restarting the plant including the 3,400 direct and indirect jobs it would create, the billions in GDP it would contribute to the economy and the fact it would generate huge amounts of carbon free energy.
But the real story here isn’t so much that Three Mile Island is set to come back online. The massive news here is that it’s Microsoft buying up all the energy from it for at least 20 years and using it for its data centres.
Or to put it simply, Microsoft just bought a nuclear reactor to power its AI.
This of course set a fire under the backside of pretty much all nuclear related stocks late last week. Constellation alone was up 22% on the news, other nuclear stocks like NuScale Power (up 11%), Centrus Energy (up 8.5%) and Oklo Inc. (up 27%) all flew higher.
The reason the whole nuclear market was on a tear was the wider market realising that if Microsoft was prepared to spend up for 20 years of nuclear energy for its datacentres AI future, who else would be coming to market looking for nuclear solutions?
And social media was going nuts with commentary on this topic as well. Mainly because everyone with half an ounce of knowledge about AI has been saying for a long time (as we have) that the only solution to AI’s thirst for energy is nuclear energy.
And if you’re in two minds still about how well nuclear energy and AI go together, maybe consider what Yann LeCunn the chief AI scientist at Meta had to say on the subject…
This is an ongoing story that will continue to unfold.
What is clear is that the rollout of AI is not slowing down whatsoever. If anything its accelerating, and while Microsoft and Meta will play a big role, there’s also a sleeping giant, based right smack bang in the “Golden Triangle” in the UK that’s not only set to play a big role, but right now might even be the most important AI company in the world.
If you want to see my full debrief on this company and why I think it’s set to become Britain’s first trillion dollar company I suggest you check out everything I’ve got to say on it here.
We will see more spending on both data centres and nuclear energy from the likes of Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Google, Apple and other giants of tech loaded up with cash.
This is both a tipping point for AI in terms of there is a solution to its insatiable appetite for energy, and for nuclear energy as the world starts to properly wake up to its absolute necessity for our AI future.
AI gone wild π€ͺ
Marc Benioff net worth: $9.4 billion. Claim to fame: founder and CEO of Salesforce (NASDAQ:CRM) with a market cap of $255 billion.
Jensen Huang net worth: $101.5 billion. Claim to fame: founder and CEO of Nvidia (NASADQ:NVDA) with a market cap of $2.84 trillion.
Combined these guys have been the catalyst for over $3 trillion of value (countless more really when you look at how widespread their companies reach). So when they both sit down together on stage and chat about the future of AI, it’s worth sitting up and paying attention…
…which you can do below.
#AD
Appleβs British AI secret
Apple is about to launch its brand-new AI on its new iPhones, iPads, Macs and Macbooksβ¦
But most people donβt realise that itβs a BRITISH chip powering ALL of these devices.
Right now the company behind this chip is βunknownβ… but that could soon be about to changeβ¦
Capital at risk.
Boomers & Busters π°
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week).
Boom π
- BigTinCan Holdings (ASX:BTH) up 37%
- Symbotic Inc (NASDAQ:SYM) up 19%
- Appen Ltd (ASX:APX) up 17%
Bust π
- Predictive Oncology (NASDAQ:POAI) down 9%
- AeroVironment (NASDAQ:AVAV) down 5%
- Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 3%
From the hive mind π§
- Deals are getting done between Australia and the US on critical and strategic metals β basically everything needed to power a high tech weapons and AI world. But even with new deals getting done, big mining still says it’s not enough to fix the impending supply crunch.
- At the UN’s Summit of the Future, Sundar Pichai (CEO of Google) got a lot of attention for a $120 million “Global AI Opportunity” fund. However the real story at the Summit of the Future was the entire UN freaking out over the threats AI poses to humanity. They want widespread regulation, a specific body (modelled after their climate change one) to keep the world up-to-date and with ultimate oversight on how AI rolls out β government led, not private capital led. Good luck with that!
- Everyone’s going full throttle at AI. Even Brazil wants a slice of the cake, and who can blame them? President Luiz InΓ‘cio Lula da Silva wants AI as a platform for growth in Brazil. It’s very much a gold rush on AI and you can already see countries jockeying for the prime position to benefit.
Artificial Polltelligence π³οΈ
We’re back with a brand new poll, this one in line with the incredible move from Microsoft to buy all the energy from the soon-to-be-reopened Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
Weirdest AI image of the day
ChatGPTβs random quote of the day
“You should never start something unless you’re falling over with enthusiasm for it, otherwise the effort will outweigh the joy, and the roadblocks will seem insurmountable.” β Tim Westergren, 2007
Thanks for reading, and donβt forget to leave comments and questions below,
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief
AI Collision
Can’t wait to see the look on Ed Milliband’s face when the Labour Government realises that wind power alone will not sustain the country’s development of AI and then announces an abrupt u-turn and authorises more coal, Nuclear and oil development within the Uk
Not one but two SMR component manufacturing facilities are being constructed in South Yorkshire. Both Holtec international and Rolls Royce are investing serious amounts of money in these factories to ensure the components required to build Small nuclear power stations is readily available at scale. AI services require large amounts of reliable energy, preferably uninterrupted and definitely without the unnecessary intermittency and frequency spikes associated with renewables. Like it or not the smart money says we are going nuclear.
Milliband doesn’t have the gumption to eat a bacon sandwich let alone read the writing on the wall re Nuclear
[…] week I wrote to you about the grand plans for Constellation Energy and Microsoft to reboot the Three Mile Island nuclear […]