NextEra Energy and Google have partnered to restart Iowa's long-shuttered Duane Arnold nuclear plant, marking the first major U.S. attempt to revive a decommissioned reactor. "We expect Duane Arnold to be back online in early 2029, and the plant will provide more than 600 MW of clean, safe, 'always-on' nuclear energy to the regional grid," said Google in a blog post. Reuters reports: Under the 25-year agreement, the tech giant will purchase power from the 615-MW plant for its growing cloud and AI infrastructure in the state, while also driving significant economic investment to the Midwest region. One of the plant's minority owners, Central Iowa Power Cooperative (CIPCO), will purchase the remaining portion of the plant's output on the same terms as Google, NextEra said. The utility added that it had also signed agreements to acquire CIPCO and Corn Belt Power Cooperative's combined 30% interest in the Duane Arnold plant, bringing NextEra's ownership to 100%.

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An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: OpenAI released new data on Monday illustrating how many of ChatGPT's users are struggling with mental health issues and talking to the AI chatbot about it. The company says that 0.15% of ChatGPT's active users in a given week have "conversations that include explicit indicators of potential suicidal planning or intent." Given that ChatGPT has more than 800 million weekly active users, that translates to more than a million people a week.

The company says a similar percentage of users show "heightened levels of emotional attachment to ChatGPT," and that hundreds of thousands of people show signs of psychosis or mania in their weekly conversations with the AI chatbot. OpenAI says these types of conversations in ChatGPT are "extremely rare," and thus difficult to measure. That said, the company estimates these issues affect hundreds of thousands of people every week. OpenAI shared the information as part of a broader announcement about its recent efforts to improve how models respond to users with mental health issues. Further reading: Parents Sue OpenAI Over ChatGPT's Role In Son's Suicide

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ExxonMobil has sued California, claiming the state's new climate disclosure laws violate its First Amendment rights by forcing the company to report greenhouse gas emissions and climate risks using standards it "fundamentally disagrees with." The Verge reports: The oil and gas company claims that the two laws in question aim to "embarrass" large corporations the state "believes are uniquely responsible for climate change" in order to push them to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. There is overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels cause climate change by trapping heat on the planet. [...] Under laws the state passed in 2023, "ExxonMobil will be forced to describe its emissions and climate-related risks in terms the company fundamentally disagrees with," a complaint filed Friday says. The suit asks a US District Court to stop the laws from being enforced.

[...] ExxonMobil's latest suit now says the company "understands the very real risks associated with climate change and supports continued efforts to address those risks," but that California's laws would force it "to describe its emissions and climate-related risks in terms the company fundamentally disagrees with." "These laws are about transparency. ExxonMobil might want to continue keeping the public in the dark, but we're ready to litigate vigorously in court to ensure the public's access to these important facts," Christine Lee, a spokesperson for the California Department of Justice, said in an email to The Verge.

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