Microsoft is betting on artificial intelligence to fuel a nuclear resurgence – and more AI

As US Democrats prepare for Donald Trump’s return to the White House, environmental permitting reform could provide rare opportunities for bipartisan alignment.

Trump is preparing to launch a bonfire of environmental rules and laws. And although much of his deregulatory agenda is anathema to the left, some progressives have argued that an overly bureaucratic permitting system slows the development of renewable energy.

While this potential overhaul hangs in the balance, Microsoft is exploring the use of artificial intelligence to reduce the time and money spent on efforts to gain approval for new nuclear power plants. For today’s newsletter, I look at how this tool could support tech companies’ ambitions to use nuclear as a low-carbon energy source for energy-hungry AI data centers.

Plus, we look at what’s behind a major U-turn at retail group Walmart over the costly diversity strategy it launched with fanfare just four years ago.

nuclear energy

Using AI to deploy nuclear power. . . to power more AI?

As Big Tech plunges headlong into an uncertain artificial intelligence revolution, companies race to access nuclear energy to meet exploding electricity demand.

Microsoft, Amazon and Google have all struck deals this year with atomic power developers, who they say can provide reliable, low-carbon energy around the clock to power their data centers – and maintain their valuations soaring thanks to the strength of their AI ambitions.

In September, Microsoft announced a deal for restart the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. But the supply of idle U.S. nuclear plants is limited, and new construction will require developers to go through a slow permitting process that has rarely been used in recent years.

If power-hungry AI is the root of the energy demand problem, Microsoft is betting it can also be part of the solution: It’s developing an AI tool that it says could help reduce the cost and time to complete the nuclear site. permit.

The effort will test bipartisan ambitions to improve an energy permitting process that critics say is mired in bureaucracy — and could remove a major hurdle for the so-called Magnificent Seven.

“Licensing is the main bottleneck for bringing new (nuclear) projects online,” Nelli Babayan, Microsoft’s chief AI officer, said in a statement. presentation at a workshop in September at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, responsible for approving new nuclear sites.

Because few nuclear site permits have been issued in the past 15 years, the data is spotty. But the costs of applying to the NRC range from tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a study by utilities LG&E and KU, and caused lengthy delays. In its presentation, Microsoft mentioned a delay of a decade to obtain approval for the site.

Dominion Energy, one of the largest U.S. utilities, spent up to $600 million to obtain two licenses for a large-scale traditional power plant in Virginia, according to the LG&E and KU study. (A Dominion spokesperson could not confirm this figure at the time of publication.)

These applications require “a huge amount of manual data collection,” Kirsty Gogan, founding director and co-CEO of Terra Praxis, told me. “You have to invest all this time and all this money, without really knowing if you’re going to succeed. »

NRC spokesman David McIntyre said the agency has made progress in terms of efficiency. He discussed a new facility being developed by Kairos Power in Tennessee, the Hermes 2 Test Facility, for which the construction permit has been approved last week in a process that lasted less than 18 months. Last month, Google announced a deal with California-based Kairos to build small modular nuclear reactors.

The Hermes 2 license was approved “much faster than previous reviews,” McIntyre said, “leveraging our work on the first Kairos application and taking innovative approaches to some of our required actions.”

Microsoft has partnered with Terra Praxis to train AI models on nuclear regulatory and licensing documents, as well as geographic and seismic data, to streamline the process of preparing regulatory review applications. Terra Praxis said the AI ​​tool it built with Microsoft can reduce the time it takes to produce first app drafts from years to hours or days.

McIntyre said the NRC is “actively exploring potential uses of AI, including potentially that of Microsoft, to improve the efficiency of agency processes.”

The tool’s first customers will likely be utility and power generation companies, Gogan said. Terra Praxis is particularly interested in utilities that operate coal-fired power plants that could be converted to nuclear power generation.

A 2022 report The U.S. Department of Energy said hundreds of coal-fired power plants, including operating and retired plants, could be converted to nuclear power. Converting coal-fired equipment to nuclear power could save 15 to 35 percent on construction costs, he said.

Nuclear power proponents say such fleet-wide initiatives — involving dozens of sites at once, rather than just a series of individual projects — will be necessary to reduce costs. This is due to the high level of investment required to support the nuclear supply chain and train a workforce capable of delivering plants on time.

The head of a newly formed nuclear power company, who met with the NRC this year to advocate for licensing reform, said the agency has been receptive to pressure for licensing reform .

But for now, he added, “what I think most people see is a ball of bureaucracy, terrible deadlines and supply chains that have been cut up and spread across the world, which are now threatened for geopolitical reasons. If there is ever going to be commercial adoption (of nuclear power), that’s where we’re going to have to go.”

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Walmart abandons its DEI commitments

Walmart announced a large-scale retirement key diversity, equity and inclusion policies, becoming the largest U.S. company to abandon commitments to DEI programs following pressure from activists.

Ahead of the Black Friday shopping rush, America’s largest private-sector employer announced it would end its Center for Racial Equity, a nonprofit launched in 2020, as well as programs that help suppliers majority owned by women, minorities, veterans or LGBTQ people.

Walmart will stop sharing data on its LGBTQ corporate policies with the Human Rights Campaign and will phase out the terms diversity, equity and inclusion in company documents, the retailer said.

Walmart declined to explain these measures or clarify whether it plans to discontinue racial equity training altogether.

“We’ve been on a journey and know we’re not perfect, but every decision comes from a desire to foster a sense of belonging,” the retailer said in a statement.

The term DEI has become the target of right-wing attacks. “Anti-woke” activist Robby Starbuck claimed credit for Walmart’s U-turn, write on: “I have to give major credit to their leaders, because this will send shockwaves throughout corporate America. »

A growing number of companies, including Ford, Caterpillar and Boeing, have abandoned or watered down their diversity policies. we emphasized a few months ago.

However, it’s not clear that investors view diversity efforts as a financially significant concern. Walmart’s stock price did not react to Monday’s news. But a sharp drop in Bud Light sales, after a collaboration with a transgender TikTok personality, has highlighted the potential risks for companies drawn into America’s culture wars. The backlash caused a 10.5 percent drop in revenue at parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Smart Reads

Fail The outcome of COP29 is too little, too latewarns Martin Wolf.

Too promising The general public has certain good reasons to be skeptical on political promises of green jobs booms, writes Sarah O’Connor.

Hold the fire Steelmaker ArcelorMittal blamed its decision on political uncertainty. delay green investments in the EU.