Nuclear energy is back in vogue thanks to AI's insatiable demand

AI poses a conundrum as it promises to worsen and help us address climate change at the same time

- JASPREET BINDRA

Nuclear energy was the artificial intelligence (AI) of the 1960s. It generated unprecedented excitement and hype around the world. Despite its known dangers-Hiroshima and Nagasaki were quite recent back then-there was great optimism over how nuclear technology could change the world with abundant cheap energy, and free humanity from the tyranny of fossil fuels. Capturing this zeitgeist, US president Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his famous *Atoms for Peace, speech at the United Nations in 1953, promising nuclear power for clean and abundant energy rather than for death and destruction. The US was particularly excited, as it rolled out nuclear power plants and submarines and even considered nuclear aircraft. But US euphoria gave way to panic when in March 1979 the reactor core of Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station at Pennsylvania suffered a partial meltdown. The ensuing alarm meant that this technology hit a big speed-bump. Nuclear tech never recovered. Multiple reactors closed and the share of nuclear power shrank. Today, most plants in the US are 30-5O years old and the cost of setting up new ones is prohibitive, with a recent one costing $35 billion.