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Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI (www.washingtonpost.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/news@hexbear.net
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The tax breaks in the Inflation Reduction Act are crucial to making the deal economically feasible, according to Constellation. They provide a credit for every megawatt hour of nuclear energy produced.

The whole energy credit system is a fascist shell game. Instead of imposing transition requirements and bench marks, taxing corporations at higher rates based on their carbon impact, the government creates a speculative asset for these "green" initiatives that become more valuable then the actual product being produced. They can be sold in some cases, or in this case remove "taxes". But naturally, there are zero stipulations on HOW the energy produced is even used.

If approved by regulators, Three Mile Island would provide Microsoft with the energy equivalent it takes to power 800,000 homes, or 835 megawatts.

So instead of this easing the burden of energy costs on citizens, it eases the tax burden of corporations. Naturally, M$ is using this for bullshit AI slop too.

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[–] 3 points 2 years ago

The promise of quantum computing isn't to break encryption, that would make it a pointless billions-dollar Y2K-like makework project to reconfigure all our systems to use post-quantum cryptography schemes. Quantum computers are primarily interesting because they promise to get a "native" speedup at simulating quantum-mechanical objects like molecules and proteins. So drug & material design could benefit. However, the field has been stalled for the past decade.

I do disagree that technological advancement has hit a wall, though. Things are moving faster than ever. To choose a single example, the impact of cheap energy-dense lithium batteries has been enormous. Displays also really have improved a lot.

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