Today in Labor History March 28, 1979: Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant, in Pennsylvania, had a level-5 partial meltdown, the worst nuclear power accident in U.S. history, and one of the worst in the world, prior to Chernobyl. TMI operators had not been adequately trained to handle the type of malfunction that led to the meltdown and, consequently, a delay in mitigation efforts. Clean-up began in 1993, at a cost of $2 billion in today’s dollars. Officials concluded that the release of radioactive material from the plant did not raise exposure levels of nearby residents to a level that would increase cancer cases by even one additional case. However, anti-nuclear groups hired their own independent investigators who found that radiation levels in the area were significantly elevated. A peer-reviewed study by Dr. Steven Wing found a significant increase in cancers from 1979-1985 among people living within ten miles of TMI. And in 2009, Dr. Wing said that the amount of radiation released during the accident was likely "thousands of times greater" than the NRC's estimates.
In 2024, Bill Gates obtained exclusive rights to the “carbon-free” energy from TMI, once it reopens, to power his Artificial Intelligence farms, starting in 2028. Other Tech Barons are also looking to exploit nuclear power for their energy-hungry AI farms. Data centers currently account for about 1 to 1.5 percent of global electricity use. NVIDIA will be shipping out over 1.5 million AI server units per year by 2027. These servers, alone, would consume at over 85.4 terawatt-hours of electricity annually, more than many small countries use in a year. Yet, the U.S. still has no permanent radioactive waste storage facilities. As of 2023, the U.S. had roughly 88,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from commercial reactors, and all of this is stranded at the reactor sites. Experts expect this number to grow by 2,000 metric tons each year.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/20/energy/three-mile-island-microsoft-ai/index.html
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ai-boom-could-use-a-shocking-amount-of-electricity/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-waste-is-piling-up-does-the-u-s-have-a-plan/
#workingclass #LaborHistory #radioactive #nuclear #threemileisland #nuclearaccident #radiation #nuclearwaste #artificialintelligence #ai #billgates #chernobyl #cancere #publichealth
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