{"id":111090,"date":"2025-01-20T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/intelligence-artificielle-et-electricite-nucleaire-chronique-dun-mariage-annonce\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T14:06:58","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T12:06:58","slug":"intelligence-artificielle-et-electricite-nucleaire-chronique-dun-mariage-annonce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/intelligence-artificielle-et-electricite-nucleaire-chronique-dun-mariage-annonce\/","title":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence and nuclear power: the chronicle of a marriage foretold"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Computing centres that process and store large and growing amounts of data are major consumers of electricity. This is particularly true of companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency sectors: in 2022, altogether they consumed 460 terawatt hours (TWh) of electrical energy, or 2% of global electricity consumption (and the equivalent of France\u2019s electricity consumption in 2023). The IEA (International Energy Agency) estimated that, <\/a>given the rapid development of the AI sector, its consumption might double by 2026 to 1,000 TWh. According to current figures quoted by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)<\/a>, the combined electricity consumption of the \u2018big four\u2019 \u2014 Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) \u2014 will have doubled between 2017 and 2021, reaching 72 TWh (17% of France\u2019s).<\/h6>\n\n\n
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\n \u00a9 Aerovista Luchtfotografie \/ Shutterstock\n <\/p>\n

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23 April 2020, Middenmeer, Holland. Aerial view of new Google and Netflix datacenter HPE Nimble.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n<\/div>\n

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Faced with the need to secure their electricity supply in the future, American AI companies are considering giving preference to \u2018clean\u2019 electricity sources, produced without CO2 <\/sub>emissions, in particular renewable sources (solar photovoltaic and wind power), which already supply them with electricity. In the United States in 2024, for example, Microsoft has signed a US$10 billion contract with the Canadian company Brookfield Renewable Partners, which is to supply it with electricity produced by these technologies, with an installed capacity of 10.5 gigawatts (GW). However, these sources are intermittent (their production depends in particular on weather conditions), and AI companies want their large computing centres to be supplied with electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so they are considering using nuclear electricity produced by monitored power plants.<\/p>\n

The IAEA estimates that conventional high-power nuclear reactors (1,000 megawatts [MW]) and small modular reactors (PRM) with a small power output (30 to 100 MW) can meet the electricity needs of computer centres on a permanent basis. It is true that today, the investment costs required to build high-power reactors of the EPR (European Pressurized Reactor) type, with an electrical capacity of 1,600 MW and a core cooled with high-pressure water, are generally high and their construction times long (France has experienced this with the Flamanville reactor). PRMs are designed to be mass-produced in a factory and installed in a company, for example in the vicinity of a large computer centre, to supply it with electricity or even heat. The first small nuclear reactors were used to power submarines and aircraft carriers (they power the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier and the submarines of the French nuclear deterrent force), as well as icebreakers in Russia\u2019s Arctic Ocean. There are several variants, generally using low-enriched uranium 235 fuel (4%-5%), most of them being still prototypes (nearly 70 commercial projects). Built in series, PRMs are likely to have lower construction and production costs per MW, with shorter construction times.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n What is the environmental impact of artificial intelligence?<\/a>\n \n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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30 July 2024<\/div>\n LE BEC Antoine<\/a>\n MARTI Pierre-Antoine<\/a>\n
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\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Newswatch\n <\/a>\n Environment<\/a>\n Science and Technology<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The IAEA stresses that the major companies in the AI sector can contribute to helping the nuclear industry overcome the technical and financial obstacles that remain to developing new nuclear techniques. In particular, it cites statements by Microsoft and Google, which have separately announced their intention to move in this direction in the coming decades. On a practical level, the American multinationals have begun negotiations with electricity companies that plan to restart several large nuclear reactors that have been shut down in recent years, and to buy their electricity over a period of two decades. The contracts include Holtec International\u2019s 805 MW Palisades plant on Lake Michigan in the US, which was shut down in 2022 (it has also developed a 300 MW PMR). The deal will be financed with a US$1.5 billion loan from the US Department of Energy.<\/p>\n

In a more surprising move, Microsoft has signed an agreement with Constellation Energy to buy electricity from one of the two reactors at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, which it plans to restart.[1]<\/a><\/sup> Located in Londonderry, Pennsylvania, the plant was severely damaged by an accident in 1979, when the core of one of its two reactors melted following the loss of water from the cooling system and radiation was released into the atmosphere. The reactor (906 MW), which was not damaged in the accident and is now shut down, is due to be brought back into service following safety checks and approval from the US safety authority. The price of the electricity supplied by this reactor would be 110 US dollars per MWh (in France, the cost of production by the \u2018historic\u2019 reactors, the oldest, is 50 euros). Google has announced that it will be buying electricity from Kairos Power (on a 500 MW basis), produced by 150 MW modular reactors operating at high temperature with molten salts, which it plans to develop by 2030. Amazon, meanwhile, has signed an agreement with X-Energy, which is developing PRMs (operating at high temperature and gas-cooled): by investing USD 500 million, it has undertaken to buy the electricity produced by its reactors in Washington State.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n

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AI multinationals, including Meta and Google, want to secure their energy future by also investing in the monitorable geothermal power plants of the future, which geothermal companies are planning to build in the western United States, where large heat sources are located.[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n

Partnerships between AI multinationals and \u2018clean\u2019 electricity producers will undoubtedly help to stimulate the development of new techniques such as small nuclear reactors but, as some experts have pointed out, their large-scale use could pose serious problems, given that there are only a limited number of these reactors in operation, apart from those for military purposes, and that only limited experience is available. Some reactors do have the advantage of not being cooled by high-pressure water (which means they are not fitted with pumps that have caused accidents as within the Three Mile Island plant), but wouldn\u2019t it be prudent to have back-up systems, just in case?<\/p>\n

But it is the fuel that poses the most serious problem: in the majority of projects, it is uranium 238 enriched in uranium 235, generally to 5%, but sometimes to 10%-20%. Even assuming that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty constraints are respected, is it reasonable to commission a large number of reactors using enriched uranium? The high intensity of neutron flux in a small volume could be at the origin of accidents. The use of enriched uranium would only be possible if strict control services were set up, to be recommended by the IAEA. Uranium 235 could not be put within everyone\u2019s hands…<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013 <\/span><\/em>
\nN.B.: this article has been translated from French by DeepL, and revised by the author and Futuribles.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n

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\n Voir aussi<\/span>\n
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\n \n \"\"<\/a>\n <\/span>\n \n G\u00e9opolitique du nucl\u00e9aire<\/a>\n \n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n <\/a>\n <\/span>\n
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29 September 2023<\/div>\n VIDALENC \u00c9ric<\/a>\n
\n 8 min.\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n
\n \n \n <\/use>\n<\/svg>\n\n Read, Seen, Heard\n <\/a>\n Geopolitics<\/a>\n Science and Technology<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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  1. \n

    Greshko<\/span> Michael, \u201cNuclear Power for AI: What It Will Take to Reopen Three Mile Island Safely<\/a>\u201d, Nature,<\/em> vol. 634, 30 September 2024; and Castelvecchi<\/span> Davide, \u201cWill AI\u2019s Huge Energy Demands Spur a Nuclear Renaissance?<\/a>\u201d, Nature,<\/em> vol. 635, 25 October 2024. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n

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    Castelvecchi<\/span> Davide, \u201cGeothermal Power Is Vying to Be a Major Player in the World\u2019s Clean-energy Future<\/a>\u201d, Nature,<\/em> vol. 635, 14 November 2024. \u2191<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Computing centres that process and store large and growing amounts of data are major consumers of electricity. This is particularly true of companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency sectors: in 2022, altogether they consumed 460 terawatt hours (TWh) of electrical energy, or 2% of global electricity consumption (and the equivalent of France\u2019s electricity … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":101267,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[140],"tags":[210],"keyword":[988,1504,1099,1037],"class_list":["post-111090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newswatch","tag-science-et-technique-en","keyword-intelligence-artificielle-en","keyword-electricite-en","keyword-multinationales-en","keyword-energie-nucleaire-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111090"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111714,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111090\/revisions\/111714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111090"},{"taxonomy":"keyword","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.futuribles.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyword?post=111090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}