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If they're cheaper than nuclear, why is the AI crowd looking to nuclear for data centers?

I can think of two possible reasons: (1) it's America, and it's very hard to build anything, and nuclear is smaller and fits on site, and (2) we have an administration openly hostile to solar and wind energy for political "vibes" reasons.

Vibes are dumb. I think looking back this is going to be seen as an age of people deciding based more on vibes, which ultimately comes down to tribal dog whistles, than reason.





NVIDIA wants to run on 100% renewable electricity and already does so: https://nvidia.com/en-us/sustainability/

OpenAI bets on SMRs (now an ectoplasm, check NuScale...) and solar arrays: https://cdn.openai.com/global-affairs/openai-doe-rfi-5-7-202... , and drives breakthroughs on renewable energy: https://openai.com/index/strengthening- americas-ai-leadership-with-the-us-national-laboratories/

Microsoft: https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/micros...

Alphabet (Google) buys 'Intersect' which "delivers ((...)) infrastructure for data centers and other energy-intensive industries by co-locating industrial demand with dedicated gas and renewable power generation". 4.75 billion USD. https://abc.xyz/investor/news/news-details/2025/Alphabet-Ann...


See if they've actually committed money in a serious way, not in a "if you can actually achieve this absurdly low price point we'll buy it" way.

> If they're cheaper than nuclear, why is the AI crowd looking to nuclear for data centers?

They're looking for credulous investors in the nuclear startups they founded?


You mean VC companies creating their own customers to justify their investments again?



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