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Recently, Microsoft, Google and Amazon closed agreements with nuclear power plant operators and developers in order to drive the rise of data centers, which provide computing services to large and small companies. Demand has accelerated due to large investments that these and other technology companies have done in artificial intelligence, which requires much more power than other more conventional technology businesses such as social networks, video streaming and online searches.
Microsoft has agreed to pay an energy company to restart the decommissioned Three Mile Island nuclear plantin Pennsylvania. And this week Amazon and Google signaled that they were focusing on a new generation of small modular reactors. This technology is not yet commercialized. successfully, but, energy experts say, it could be cheaper and easier to build than the large nuclear reactors the United States has built since the 1950s.
Big tech companies, which previously invested heavily in wind and solar energy, are now gravitating toward nuclear energy because they want energy available 24 hours a day without producing greenhouse gas emissions. Wind and solar do not contribute to climate change, but they are not available at all times without the help of batteries or other forms of energy storage. All of the big tech companies have committed to powering their operations with emissions-free energy by 2030, but those commitments came before the rise of artificial intelligence, which has demanded more energy.
“They want all of this to grow sustainably and right now the best answer is nuclear power,” said Aneesh Prabhu, managing director at S&P Global Ratings.
On Monday, Google declared that it had reached a deal to buy nuclear power from small modular reactors. who developed a startup called Kairos Power and expected the first one to be up and running by 2030.
On Wednesday, Amazon indicated that it would invest in the development of small modular reactorss from another startup, X-Energy. Microsoft’s deal with Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island was announced last month.
Prabhu mentioned that each of the small modular reactors could cost about $1 billion to build and that one day it might be feasible to place them next to data centers.
Environmental reasons
Technology companies are not the only ones defending nuclear energy. Recently, President Joe Biden signed a law that was approved by bipartisan majorities in Congress which, according to its authors, will accelerate the development of new nuclear energy projects.
The Biden administration considers nuclear power, which currently supplies about 20 percent of the country’s electricity, critical to its greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals. This is a change from the past, when many Democrats opposed the construction of new nuclear power plants for environmental, economic and safety reasons.
“Revitalizing America’s nuclear sector is key to adding more carbon-free energy to the electric grid and meeting the needs of our growing economy, from artificial intelligence and data centers to manufacturing and healthcare,” Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm said in a statement.
The tech industry’s backing of nuclear projects could help boost an energy source that has struggled. With 94 active nuclear reactors, the United States is the country that operates the most units, but in recent decades only two have been built. Both units were built at the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Waynesboro, Georgia, but were tens of billions of dollars over budget and arrived years late.
The two units were part of a “nuclear renaissance” highly anticipated that it planned to produce some two dozen new reactors. However, those ambitions were largely derailed by Vogtle’s troubles and the failure of a nuclear power project in South Carolina.
and the economy
According to tech industry executives, this time will be different, and some have staked their personal fortunes on that belief. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has invested more than $1 billion in a startup called TerraPower, which is working on developing smaller reactors in collaboration with PacifiCorp, Warren Buffett’s electric power company.
The idea is that the components of each unit are small enough to be mass produced. on an assembly line, which would make them cheaper. Each plant could start with one or several reactors and more would be added over time.
“The key to nuclear power is that you have to pick something and build a lot to make it cheap,” said Rich Powell, director of the Clean Energy Buyers Association, a trade group that counts big technology companies among its members.
However, opponents of nuclear energy are skeptical. They assure that, although the proposal of the electrical and technological companies may seem attractive, it does not address the problems that nuclear energy has suffered for a long time. Among them, the high cost of the new reactors, delays in their construction and the lack of a permanent storage site for the used nuclear fuel.
“Since 1960, the United States has attempted to build 250 reactors,” said Arnie Gundersen, chief engineer at Fairewinds Energy Education, a nonprofit organization that opposes nuclear energy. “More than half were canceled before generating electricity. Of the remaining reactors, none were completed on time or on budget.”
For many technology and energy executives, nuclear power is essential because renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydropower are not as reliable in meeting growing needs.
Tech giants have increased their spending to staggering levels, largely to meet the demand and potential they see in artificial intelligence. The five largest tech companies, including Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon, collectively spent $59 billion on capital expenditures in the latest quarter alone, 63 percent more than a year earlier. And they have signaled to investors that they plan to continue spending.
This year, Amazon spent $650 million to purchase a data center campus under development that will be powered directly by an existing nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. In addition to the Three Mile Island deal, Microsoft has agreed to purchase power from Helion Energy, a Seattle-area startup seeking to build the world’s first nuclear fusion power plant in 2028.
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