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UNDER CONSTRUCTION - MOVED TO MIDDLEBORO REVIEW 3 https://middlebororeviewandsoon.blogspot.com/
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Google's venture into nuclear-powered AI data centers follows Microsoft's push to reopen Three Mile Island to power its own.
Google announced on Monday that it had signed a deal to purchase energy from a set of yet-to-be-built small nuclear energy plants in order to power artificial intelligence.
Google signed a power-purchase agreement with Kairos Power, a California-based startup that will build four small modular reactors (SMRs) by 2035 for the Big Tech company's exclusive use.
AI data centers use astonishingly high levels of electricity, and Big Tech firms, which have made net-zero pledges, have recently been turning to nuclear power as a potentially carbon-free power source.
Though it doesn't emit greenhouse gases during operation, nuclear power comes with high risks and produces long-lasting radioactive waste; scientists and experts are divided on the wisdom of its use, and many environmental and justice-oriented groups are adamantly opposed.
Reinhard Uhrig, a climate and energy expert at WWF Austria, decried the new deal, arguing that renewable energies such as wind and solar are the best way to reduce emissions.
"This is BS, Google," Uhrig wrote on social media, citing an "unproven design."
The Google-Kairos deal calls for one 50-megawatt reactor to be online by 2030 and three more 75-megawatt reactors to be operational by 2035. That's far less than a typical conventional nuclear reactor, which produces about 1,000 megawatts of power.
The United States currently gets about 19% of its electricity from nuclear power. Tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act have spurred growth in the sector, with Big Tech showing a particular avarice for nuclear energy.
Last month, a deal was announced to reopen Three Mile Island to power Microsoft's AI data centers. Three Mile Island, which sits on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, was the site of the worst nuclear disaster in U.S. history when a reactor partially melted down in 1979, for which final cleanup efforts are still ongoing. The plant shuttered in 2019 but, pending regulatory approvals, is scheduled to restart operations in 2028.
Renowned political activist Jane Fonda responded to news of the Three Mile Island reopening by declaring, in an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer, that her "heart sank" and that nuclear is "not a good climate solution."
Google's nuclear play is more experimental than Microsoft's. There are only three operational SMRs in the world—the first opened in China in 2021—and none in North America. SMRs use molten fluoride salt as a coolant, rather than water.
Google and Kairos didn't release any financial details about the deal and the sites for the SMRs haven't been chosen yet. Kairos formed in 2016 with the backing of the U.S. Department of Energy. Google says the SMRs will provide "clean, round-the-clock" energy.
Google, which is owned by Alphabet, lost a major antitrust case in August and faces further federal scrutiny for acting as a monopoly.
BLINKEN LIED!
BLINKEN IS AN INCOMPETENT, UNQUALIFIED BOOB WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN
REPLACED LONG AGO!
LLOYD AUSTIN .....DEFENSE SECRETARY? FAILED TO COMPREHEND THE CONSEQUENCES OF CORRUPT NETANYAHU'S WAR EXPANSION?
THE U.S. CANNOT ALLOW NETANYAHU'S LUNACY TO DRAG US INTO AN
ENDLESS WAR!
"We should not wait 30 days," one group argued. "U.S. law requires ending the weapons NOW."
After a year of outrage over U.S. support for Israel's devastating assault on the Gaza Strip, multiple media outlets reported Tuesday that the Biden administration threatened to cut off U.S. weapons if the Israeli government does not take "urgent and sustained actions" to improve humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territory within 30 days.
The October 13 letter from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is addressed to Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant and Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer. Axios reporter Barak Ravid published images of the letter on social media and The Washington Post reported that its "authenticity was confirmed by U.S. and Israeli officials."
Blinken and Austin noted requirements under federal law—which critics of the war have often cited in arguments that continuing to provide Israel with weapons is illegal—and National Security Memorandum 20, which President Joe Biden issued in February. NSM-20 directs the secretary of state "to obtain certain credible and reliable written assurances from foreign governments" that they use U.S. arms in line with international humanitarian law and will not "arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly, the transport or delivery of United States humanitarian assistance."
The U.S. secretaries wrote that "to reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory and consistent with its assurances to us, Israel must, starting now and within 30 days, act on the following concrete measures. Failure to demonstrate a sustained commitment to implementing and maintaining these measures may have implications for U.S. policy under NSM-20 and relevant U.S. law."
The letter calls on the Israeli government to "surge all forms of humanitarian assistance throughout Gaza," with a list of specific actions. It also demands that Israel "ensure that the commercial and Jordan Armed Forces (JAF) corridors are functioning at full and continuous capacity" and "end the isolation in northern Gaza."
While acknowledging concerns about Israel's unverified allegations that a small number of staff from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East were involved in the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack, Blinken and Austin also expressed alarm about the Knesset's potential adoption of UNRWA legislation that "would devastate the Gaza humanitarian response at this critical moment and deny vital educational and social services to tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which could have implications under relevant U.S. law and policy."
As CNN reported Tuesday:
Israel appears to already be responding to the letter, at least indirectly. Just one day after the letter was sent, COGAT, the Israeli agency that manages policy for the Palestinian territories and the flow of aid into the strip, tweeted photos of aid going into Gaza.
"30 trucks entered northern Gaza through the Erez Crossing earlier today. Israel is not preventing the entry of humanitarian aid, with an emphasis on food, into Gaza," COGAT said in a post on X. "Israel will continue to allow the entry of humanitarian aid to the residents of Gaza, while simultaneously destroying Hamas’ military and governance infrastructures."
However, since Sunday, Israel has also continued killing civilians in Gaza, bombing a hospital complex and refugee camps—actions that have led progressive U.S. lawmakers to call on Biden to stop "this evil genocide."
Israel faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its yearlong assault on Gaza—which, according to local officials in the Hamas-governed enclave, has killed at least 42,344 Palestinians and wounded another 99,013, with thousands more missing.
Responding to the new letter in a Tuesday statement, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now, said that "however long overdue, this official warning that Israel must stop blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza or face a suspension of U.S. military aid is an important and unprecedented signal that Israel has crossed even the Biden administration's permissive red lines."
"We now need the Biden administration to show action, not just words, in enforcing U.S. laws, which prohibit aid to Israel given not only its relentless obstruction of humanitarian relief but deliberate starvation and incessant bombardment of Gaza's civilians," she added.
The Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project noted on social media that the United States Agency for International Development and the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration "recommended ending weapons to Israel months ago for these violations."
"Blinken ignored them and lied to Congress about their findings," the group said. "We should not wait 30 days. U.S. law requires ending the weapons NOW."
Georgia state Rep. Ruwa Romman (D-97), who is Palestinian American, agreed. She declared: "Do it now! There's 370 days of evidence. The hundreds of thousands of people being starved in Gaza won't survive 30 more days."
Outgoing Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.)—who lost his June primary to a pro-Israel candidate backed by lobbyist money—also argued Tuesday that "30 days is too long to wait and see if we will impose an arms embargo."
"How many more Palestinians are we going to allow Israel to murder in 30 days?" he asked. "How many more children and families and generations? We need an arms embargo NOW!"
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