Israel’s high-tech industry is among the world’s leaders in Artificial Intelligence. The country is also the only one among all OECD nations to have a birth rate well above replacement so that its population will continue to increase in the foreseeable future.

What’s the connection between these two seemingly unrelated phenomena? The answer: Israel’s energy needs will grow tremendously in the coming decades. Artificial Intelligence is a huge energy guzzler (e.g., an AI prompt uses ten times more energy than a simple Google search request) – and I haven’t mentioned Israel’s plan to be a world leader in quantum computing that devours even more energy! Added to all this, higher population numbers clearly also mean more energy use.

Given Israel’s sunny weather, one might think that producing more solar power would be enough, but it turns out that the “sun” isn’t even close to offering enough energy. That’s because AI data centers are huge energy guzzlers. There isn’t sufficient wind offshore in the Mediterranean for that to help much either. Nor is there much thermal energy coming out of the ground. Oil and coal – too polluting. What about the country’s huge gas finds? They have already been “sold” to neighboring countries for hard currency. The only viable solution? Nuclear energy.

That sounds reasonable; after all, Israel already has had an operating nuclear research site (in Dimona) for decades. But that’s precisely the problem.........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)