Big technology companies have turned to nuclear power

Tech giants are increasingly looking to nuclear reactors to power power-hungry data centers. Both Amazon and Microsoft signed major deals this year with nuclear power plants in the United States. Both Microsoft and Google have shown interest in the next generation of small modular reactors that are still under development.

New AI data centers need a lot of electricity, which has kept companies away from their climate goals as their carbon emissions grow. Nuclear reactors will likely solve both of these problems. As a result, technology companies are breathing new life into America’s aging nuclear reactor fleet, while also throwing their weight behind emerging nuclear technologies that have yet to prove themselves.

“The outlook for this industry is certainly brighter today than it was five or 10 years ago,” says Mark Morey, senior advisor for electricity analysis at the US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.

Much of America’s aging nuclear fleet came to light in the 1970s and 1980s. But the industry has faced a decline in the wake of high-profile accidents such as Three Mile Island and the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Nuclear power plants are also expensive to build and generally less flexible than the gas plants that now make up much of the world The electricity mix in the United States. Gas-fired power plants can ramp up more quickly and decline as electricity demand ebbs and flows.

Nuclear power plants typically provide constant “base load” power. This makes it an attractive power source for data centers. Unlike manufacturing or other industries that operate during daytime hours, data centers operate around the clock.

“When people are asleep and offices are closed and we don’t use much [electricity]“What matches nuclear power very well with data centers is that they need power pretty much 24/7,” Morey says.

This consistency distinguishes nuclear power from wind and solar power, which diminishes with the weather or time of day. Over the past five years or so, many technology companies have accelerated climate targets, pledging to reach net-zero carbon dioxide emissions.

However, the additional energy demand from new AI tools has made these goals out of reach in some cases. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have seen their greenhouse gas emissions rise in recent years. Obtaining electricity from nuclear reactors is one way companies can try to reduce carbon emissions.

Microsoft signed on deal To buy power from Three Mile Island, which closed in September. “This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid to support our commitment to becoming carbon negative,” Bobby Hollis, vice president of energy at Microsoft, said in a press release at the time.

The plan is to revive the plant by 2028, a feat never before done in the United States. The plant “closed prematurely due to the weak economy” in 2019, according to Joe Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation, which owns the plant. But the outlook for nuclear power is more optimistic now than it has been for years, as companies search for sources of electricity free of carbon pollution.

In March, Amazon Web Services purchased a data center campus powered by the nearby Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania. Which A deal worth $650 million It provides electricity from the sixth largest nuclear facility in the United States (out of… 54 sites today).

Google is considering purchasing nuclear power for its data centers as part of its sustainability plans. “It is clear that the trajectory of AI investments has increased the scale of the task at hand,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in a statement. Interview with Nikki this week. “We are now looking at additional investments, whether that is in solar energy, evaluating technologies such as small nuclear reactors, etc.”

He refers to next-generation reactors that are still under development and are not expected to be ready to connect to the power grid until the 2030s at the earliest. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a design for an advanced small modular reactor for the first time last year. These advanced reactors are approx From a tenth to a quarter the size of their older ancestors; Their size and modular design should make them easier and cheaper to build. They may also be more flexible than larger nuclear plants when it comes to adjusting the amount of electricity they produce to match changes in demand.

Bill Gates, for example, is all about nuclear energy. He is the founder and president of TerraPower, a company that develops small modular reactors. Last year, Microsoft put out a job listing for a major program manager to lead the company’s nuclear energy strategy that will include small modular reactors.

“I strongly believe that nuclear energy can help us solve the climate problem, which is very important,” Gates said in an interview with the magazine. Edge last month.

This week, the Department of Energy released a new report a report Expecting that US nuclear capacity may triple by 2050. Then Flatness for years, Electricity demand in the United States is expected to rise thanks to electric vehicles, new data centers, cryptocurrency mining, and manufacturing facilities. According to the report, this increasing demand is changing the outlook for nuclear energy. Just two years ago, utilities were shutting down nuclear reactors. Now, they are extending the life of the reactors by up to 80 years and plan to restart reactors that have been shut down, she says.

“It is reasonable to believe that technology companies can catalyze a new wave of investment in nuclear energy, in the United States and around the world. There has been a lot of talk about the idea in the industry,” said Ed Crooks, Wood Mackenzie’s senior vice president and executive director of nuclear energy. Intellectualism of the Americas. books In this week’s blog post.

This does not necessarily mean that things are going smoothly in nuclear energy in the United States. New reactor designs and plans to reopen closed nuclear power plants are still subject to regulatory approval. We have encountered initiatives to build old power plants and new designs High costs and Delay. Amazon It already faces opposition to its nuclear power plans in Pennsylvania over concerns it could raise electricity costs for other consumers. The nuclear power industry still faces opposition due to the impact of uranium mining on nearby communities and concerns about where radioactive waste is stored.

“It’s an interesting and challenging time in many ways,” says Mori. “We’ll see what happens.”