Application of the Oak Ridge Super Computer to Streamline Document Access at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant. [View all]

[NNadir]

Under the theory that if anyone, anywhere, at any time, is injured by exposure to radiation ever, it's worse than the destruction of the planetary atmosphere, the nuclear industry is required to maintain ponderous documentation to prevent anything less than absolute perfection.

Perfection is expensive and labor intensive.

The Supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab - one of the most powerful computers in the world - has worked with a nuclear start up, to manage document access at the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Plant, the last nuclear plant in California.

Frontier supercomputer ushers in new era of nuclear AI

Subtitle:

Tech startup Atomic Canyon used the Frontier supercomputer to train nuclear-specific AI models to speed up document search and analysis capabilities for nuclear reactors

From the text:

Nuclear power is rising to meet the demand for American energy. But building new reactors or even renewing licenses of existing ones requires a tremendous amount of paperwork. Fortunately, AI is also on the rise, and paperwork is one of the things it does best.

In an innovative new AI project, tech startup company Atomic Canyon and their partner, Diablo Canyon — California’s only operational nuclear power plant — used the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop novel AI models based on the unique needs of the nuclear industry.

The AI models are designed to reduce the time, labor and resources the nuclear industry spends searching the millions upon millions of complex nuclear documents related to parts, maintenance records, engineering evaluations, regulations and plant procedures. The AI models are open-source and available to anyone in the nuclear industry. Once fully developed, the AI models could be used in plants all across the country.

“We need energy — period — and nuclear is an absolutely key component to enabling the energy we have today and building energy for the future,” said Trey Lauderdale, the founder and CEO of Atomic Canyon...

...Nuclear power is rising to meet the demand for American energy. But building new reactors or even renewing licenses of existing ones requires a tremendous amount of paperwork. Fortunately, AI is also on the rise, and paperwork is one of the things it does best.

In an innovative new AI project, tech startup company Atomic Canyon and their partner, Diablo Canyon — California’s only operational nuclear power plant — used the Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory to develop novel AI models based on the unique needs of the nuclear industry.

The AI models are designed to reduce the time, labor and resources the nuclear industry spends searching the millions upon millions of complex nuclear documents related to parts, maintenance records, engineering evaluations, regulations and plant procedures. The AI models are open-source and available to anyone in the nuclear industry. Once fully developed, the AI models could be used in plants all across the country.

“We need energy — period — and nuclear is an absolutely key component to enabling the energy we have today and building energy for the future,” said Trey Lauderdale, the founder and CEO of Atomic Canyon...

... Zawalick said she estimates staff probably spend around 15,000 hours a year just searching for documents. Diablo Canyon’s databases contain about 2 billion pages of documents, which require a significant amount of institutional knowledge to navigate. She pointed to a recent example in which an issue with a single valve triggered a 6-month investigation that pulled staff away from their regular duties.

“A hundred and eighty-one working days if anyone was counting,” said Erin Bowe, Diablo Canyon nuclear innovation supervisor...

The full article is available at the link.

People are in general, suspicious of AI, but there are things it does well and this strikes me as an application that is meaningful.

The computational resources at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are capable of assisting not only in managing bureaucratic requirements of course, but also in addressing extremely demanding scientific calculations.

As for Diablo Canyon, my view is that it needs to stay on line far beyond 2030, if necessary, via refurbishment. It is an essential resource.