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Title: Can AI Help Manage Nuclear Reactors?

Link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/04/14/...

America's Department of Energy launched a federally funded R&D center in
1946 called the Argonne National Laboratory, and its research became the
basis for all of the world's commercial nuclear reactors. But it's now
developed an AI-based tool that can "help operators run nuclear plants,"
reports the Wall Street Journal, citing comments from a senior nuclear
engineer in the lab's nuclear science and engineering division: Argonne's
plan is to offer the Parameter-Free Reasoning Operator for Automated
Identification and Diagnosis, or PRO-AID, to new, tech-forward nuclear
builds, but it's also eyeing the so-called dinosaurs, some of which are being
resurrected by companies like Amazon and Microsoft to help power their AI
data centers. The global push for AI is poised to fuel a sharp rise in
electricity demand, with consumption from data centers expected to more than
double by the end of the decade, the International Energy Agency said
Thursday. The owners of roughly a third of U.S. nuclear plants are in talks
with tech companies to provide electricity for those data centers, the Wall
Street Journal has reported. PRO-AID performs real-time monitoring and
diagnostics using generative AI combined with large language models that
notify and explain to staff when something seems amiss at a plant. It also
uses a form of automated reasoning - which uses mathematical logic to encode
knowledge in AI systems - to mimic the way a human operator asks questions
and comes to understand how the plant is operating [according to Richard
Vilim, a senior nuclear engineer within the lab's nuclear science and
engineering division]. The tool can also help improve the efficiency of the
personnel needed to operate a nuclear plant, Vilim said. That's especially
important as older employees leave the workforce. "If we can hand off some of
these lower-level capabilities to a machine, when someone retires, you don't
need to replace him or her," he said... Part of the efficiency in updating
technology will come from consolidating the monitoring staff at a utility's
nuclear plants at a single, centralized location - much as gas-powered plants
already do. It hasn't found its way into a commercial nuclear plant yet, the
article acknowledges. But the senior nuclear engineer points out that
America's newer gas-powered plants ended up being more automated with digital
monitoring tools. Meanwhile the average age of America's 94 operating nuclear
reactors is 42 years old, and "nearly all" of them have had their licenses
extended, according to the article. (Those nuclear plants still provide
almost 20% of America's electricity.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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