Why Are Our Energy ‘Experts’ Always So Surprised?

Speaking Tuesday at a Bloomberg-sponsored event outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he is rooting for an “energy breakthrough” that will miraculously allow the world’s power grids to accommodate the rapid growth of AI technology. Unsurprisingly, Altman admits that AI will use vastly more energy than all the supposed experts had predicted until recently.

“There’s no way to get there without a breakthrough,” he said, as quoted by Reuters. “It motivates us to go invest more in fusion.” Altman added he hopes the world will also become more welcoming to expanded use of nuclear fission in the coming years.

Altman’s remarks will no doubt please everyone who works in the nuclear energy field. Certainly, there is no doubt that the world is going to need to build out millions of MW of additional nuclear generation in the coming decades, as the limits of renewables like wind and solar become increasingly obvious, even to the ‘experts’ who are supposed to be able to figure this stuff out in advance rather than constantly being surprised when totally predictable events come about.