the US also has a major waste issue. None of it is recycled, no state is willing to accept it, and most plants run a surplus of waste onsite.

To date there is no international consensus on how properly to label and warn a generation of humans 1000 years into the future of our waste pit hubris.

@Npars01 @Nimbius666 @gimulnautti @dragonsidedd

I live 2km from the Columbia, downstream of Hanford...

@Npars01 @pieist @Nimbius666 @gimulnautti @dragonsidedd Nuclear waste isn’t as difficult a problem as people think. It can be buried deep enough that only a modern nation state could get near it, and if they do, by nearly astronomical odds, stumble on it, the tomb would be so conspicuous only fools wouldn’t check for all forms of safety.

The waste problem is entirely political.

@Extra_Special_Carbon @Npars01 @pieist @Nimbius666 @gimulnautti
FWIW I am super bullish on high temperature superconductors for spherical tokamaks.

And a viable machine is coming online in <2 years

psfc.mit.edu/sparc

@dragonsidedd @Extra_Special_Carbon @Npars01 @pieist @Nimbius666 @gimulnautti Can we wait until a technology exists before we count on it?

Also, non-real-time computing does not require a fixed-power energy source. Things like nuclear is totally unnecessary for training tasks. Train when you have power. Pause the training when you don’t.

And nuclear is not a stable source of energy. France had to turn off nuclear because of too-hot rivers, and emergency shutdowns are common.

@ahltorp @Extra_Special_Carbon @Npars01 @pieist @Nimbius666 @gimulnautti
> Can we wait until a technology exists before we count on it?

You should learn about HTS. It is decades-old technology that has been gaining incrementally.

> nuclear is totally unnecessary for training tasks. Train when you have power. Pause the training when you don’t.

This would take orders of magnitude *more* power due to the save and read data required for suspend-and-restore.

@dragonsidedd @Extra_Special_Carbon @Npars01 @pieist @Nimbius666 @gimulnautti I was not referring to HTS, I was referring to fusion reactors. Once they a) work, and b) have been tested a while, then they are relevant. Before then it’s just wishful thinking, which is no basis for a system of government.

As for pausing, I recommend basic power management literature. This is not the forum for a detailed discussion. I would write a longer text, but: sealioning.