Paul Stenhouse: Microsoft partners with a nuclear plant to power AI, the US Government could force cars to have AM radio

How do we power the rise of AI? 

The answer at the moment seems to be nuclear power. Microsoft has partnered with a shuttered nuclear power plant called Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania to bring back its Unit 1 facility. It was shut down in 2019 because of increased competition from cheaper sources such as natural gas, solar, and wind power. 

Microsoft says it'll purchase all the power from the plant for 20 years. So, Constellation says it'll spend $1.6 billion to get it back up and running by 2028 – as long as the regulators allow it.  

You may know the name Three Mile Island because of a nuclear meltdown at the "Unit 2" site, in 1979. 

The US Government could soon force cars to have AM radio 

With the rise of internet connected electric vehicles, AM radio has been phased out. Tesla, BMW and Volkswagen promised to remove AM radio saying the electric engines can interfere with the sound of AM radio.  

Plus, why do you need it if you can stream Spotify, Pandora, or iHeart? Well, what happens if you're out of a coverage area? What happens if there's an issue with the communications systems? How do you get emergency information? Well, US lawmakers believe the answer was, and is, AM radio. It's got a huge coverage area, even in rural areas, and is integrated with emergency alerting systems. The AM for Every Vehicle Act was overwhelmingly approved by a house committee and will now go before the house for a vote and, if successful, will go to President Biden to sign. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at BE How.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Do we power the rise of Artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence,
of course, needs crazy, crazy amounts of computing power. Crazy
amounts of computing power require crazy amounts of energy, and
our Textbert Paul Stenhouses here with some fascinating new details
on what Microsoft is planning to do to try and
power some of its AI systems.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Morning A, Paul, Good morning Jack. Yeah, the future is
nuclear when it comes to AI. That's at least what
we're looking at at the moment with Microsoft. Okay, so
they have partnered with a shuttered nuclear power plant in
a place in the States, in Pennsylvania known as Three
Mile Islands.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
And that's a name that's going to be very familiar
to most people listening right now.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Yeah, because that was maybe back in the what late
seventies and seventy nine, that Unit two kind of melted down.
Well another site there that Unit two hasn't been used
since that meltdown, but there's Unit one and it's been
shut down since twenty nineteen. Okay, so that one didn't
melt down, but it's basically shut down because there was

(01:17):
so much competition between natural gas and solar and wind power,
and you know, let's be real, twenty nineteen, you know,
solar wind power very much like the energy kind of
the green energy choices of the moment. So they shut
it down. Well, we need a whole lot more power
for AI. And Microsoft has now partnered with them to say,

(01:40):
we will do a deal with you for twenty years,
will buy all of the power off you for twenty years.
The owner of the plants basically said, okay, So they
are going to spend one point six billion dollars to
get that plant back up and running, the hoping to
do that by twenty twenty eight, as long as obviously
the regulators allowed that type of thing, and Microsoft will
use it the power the data centers of now and

(02:02):
obviously the data centers over the next twenty years that
you can only assume are going to be more and
more and more energy hungry as AI begins to little
fingers into everything.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
And this is interesting because this is one of the challenges,
you know, facing the energy transition. Right. Obviously, the renewable
sources of electricity are becoming cheaper and cheaper, and solar
and wind and stuff becoming cheaper and cheaper, but also
our energy demands, especially in big developed economies, well yeah,
I mean energy demands right across different economies are massively

(02:39):
increasing because of this kind of technology. And I mean
we remember with bitcoin people were coming up and cryptocurrency
people were coming up with creative ways to try and
power their computing. But if artificial intelligence is even you know,
reaches half of the hype, they're going to need vast
quantities of energy to try and support these systems. So,
you know, nuclear could be a good option.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
But there seems to be a little bit of a
turning point too, I think with nuclear because okay, it
doesn't exactly It's a tough decision, right, because yes, the
risk of nuclear going wrong is obviously catastrophic, but the
amount of energy you can produce for very cheaply clean
energi's pretty minimal of cleanage, of minimal impact of the

(03:21):
environment is rather large. It just can go very wrong
very quickly.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, you know, you look at you look at so Germany,
for example, Germany after the Fukushima disaster. We're going on
a bit of a side track here, but after Fukushima,
Germany decided to scrap its nuclear energy basically, and that
meant that they had a spike in using fossil fuels
for energy, and as a result of that decision, in
the however many years it is ten, twelve, thirteen years

(03:48):
since since Fukushima, the number of excess deaths in Germany
has increased, I think by several thousand because of the
air pollution, because they've said our nuclear is unsafe, so
we're going to have fossil fuels instead. Fossil fuels a
result in higher air pollution, which has actually killed many
more people than likely would have been killed by nuclear.
So yeah, it's just a and.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Remember when the Ukraine Russia issue happens, they also found
it much more difficult to get excesses.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, yeah, anyway, Yeah, that is fascinating and very interesting
that like private companies would be supporting whole nuclear power
stations like that are at three Mile Island, So that's fascinating. Now,
tell us the US government is looking at forcing cars
to have AM radio.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Why, yeah, Well, you know you love radio. I love radio.
We all love radio, and it just has a different
form with the rise of internet connected electric vehicles, doesn't it.
You don't really need it over the over the air.
If you've got like your Tesla or your BMW or
your Volkswagon, they're largely connected to the Internet, so you
can just stream it on your Spotify's, your Pandoras, your Ihearts.

(04:54):
But and there's the button. This is what US lawmakers
are focused in on. What happens if you can't get
Internet connectivity, what happens if you're out of a coverage area,
what happens if there's a with those communications systems? How
do you get immergent information? The AM radio is basically
how it is hardwired into all of the US emergency systems. Today.

(05:18):
Those US lawmakers believe that it was a great solution.
It still should be a great solution, and so they
have passed the Wait for It AM for Every Vehicle Act.
It was overwhelmingly approved by a House committee. It's now
going to go to the House floor for a vote,
and if it's successful, will actually end up on President
Biden's desk to sign because they say, Jack that when

(05:42):
there's a crisis, information's key and the radio you just
can't beat it.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, this is the thing. I mean, I think that
they're becoming sensitive a to having big networks and systems
potentially taken down in attacks. Yeah, so you know, there
was concern about clouded broke Yeah, yeah, for the potential
and for foreign actors to wipe out part of the
energy grid or something like that. So sometimes actually having

(06:07):
some good old school technology can be a good thing. Hey,
thank you so much, Paul, really appreciate your time. As always,
that's our Textbert Paul Stenhouse.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
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