Big technology companies are increasingly turning to nuclear energy to meet the massive energy demands of artificial intelligence (AI) without deviating from their much-touted environmental goals.
Google announced Monday that it has signed a deal with Kairos Power to buy nuclear energy from a fleet of small modular nuclear reactors, a type of advanced nuclear reactor not yet seen in the United States.
The tech giant wasn't shy about its impetus for the deal.
“To support AI technologies that drive great advances in science, better serve businesses and customers, and foster national competitiveness and economic growth,” said Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google. , the power grid needs new sources of power,'' he said in a blog post. .
“Nuclear solutions can provide clean 24-hour power and ensure that electricity needs are met with carbon-free energy every hour of every day,” he added.
Just two days later, Amazon announced a series of deals to invest in advanced nuclear reactors, including a deal with Northwest Energy to build four small modular reactors in Washington.
The e-commerce and cloud computing giant also reached an agreement with Virginia-based Dominion Energy to explore the development of small modular nuclear reactors, and advanced reactor and fuel company X Energy Raised a $1 billion funding round.
The Amazon-Google partnership is unique in that it leverages next-generation nuclear technology. But it follows a flurry of other nuclear deals signed by big tech companies over the past year.
Nuclear energy utility Constellation Energy announced last month that it had reached an agreement with Microsoft to reopen Three Mile Island to power the tech giant's data centers for 20 years starting in 2028.
The facility suffered a partial nuclear meltdown in 1979, the worst accident in U.S. commercial nuclear power history. It was discontinued five years ago due to declining profits.
Earlier this year, Amazon Web Services (AWS) also purchased a data center campus for $650 million that will receive power directly from an adjacent nuclear power plant.
AI requires a lot of energy, and a single ChatGPT inquiry requires nearly 10 times more energy than a regular Google search. Other forms of generative AI, such as image generation, require even more energy.
The increased energy demand driven by AI has led to increased emissions from Big Tech companies seeking to fulfill their promises to become carbon neutral or carbon negative.
Nuclear energy is one of the most reliable forms of carbon-free energy, said Katie Huff, who led the Department of Energy's Office of Nuclear Energy from 2022 to 2024 and is now an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
According to Energy Information Administration data, nuclear energy has a capacity factor of 93.1 percent, meaning it operates at full power just over 93 percent of the time.
The reliability of renewable fuels, which can be improved by batteries, is almost twice as reliable as coal or natural gas and three times as reliable as wind or solar.
“This kind of reliability is important when your data center needs to run every second of every minute of the year, 365 days a year, and be unaffected by things like clouds passing by the sun or complex wind patterns that cause lulls. ” Hough said.
Nuclear energy is particularly suited to high-tech companies because it can produce large amounts of electricity at once in a single power plant, said Matt Crozatto, executive director of strategy and policy at the Nuclear Energy Association, the industry's leading trade group. said. Required to keep the AI running.
“Running large data centers requires a lot of energy, so being able to think about carbon-free electricity in larger units, like nuclear power plants, starts to make sense. If it's a scale or niche application, the same needs may not exist,” says Crozat.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Wednesday that advanced nuclear reactors, like those funded by Google and Amazon, are key to balancing the nation's efforts to reach net-zero emissions with growing energy demand. He said it was possible.
“Small modular nuclear reactors are a big part of how we solve this challenge of achieving 100 percent clean electricity by 2035, while meeting all future demand,” he said at an Amazon-sponsored event. occupy,” he said.
The Department of Energy estimates that the U.S. will need 700 to 900 gigawatts of additional clean energy to reach net zero, and the country's nuclear capacity could increase by 200 gigawatts by 2050.
Huff added, “I think Big Tech has an interesting role to play in seeing that growth happen and initiating the ordering of the implementations needed to scale up the ramp-up.”
Despite its obvious advantages, nuclear energy has had a checkered history. Between the Three Mile Island partial meltdown in 1979 and the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, nuclear power largely fell out of favor in the 1990s.
A revival began in the early 2000s, but momentum was again derailed in 2011 by the disaster at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, which was accompanied by a major earthquake and tsunami.
Some countries chose to phase out nuclear power over the next few years, while others refused to build new nuclear power plants.
But as concerns about climate change grow and energy demand expands, nuclear power may be entering a new era.
“Nuclear energy is really coming back on the scene in a big way, and one of the reasons for that is because we're now talking about a world where we're seeing increased loads, and it's been over a decade, for the first time in about two years. Decades, actually,” said Valerie Karplus, associate director of Carnegie Mellon University's Scott Institute for Energy Innovation.
According to the DOE, electricity demand is expected to increase by 15-20% over the next 10 years. This load increase is being driven by data center development, increased electrification, and manufacturing recovery efforts.
It's not just the tech industry that's investing in nuclear energy. Last year, chemical giant Dow announced an agreement Use X-energy to build a nuclear reactor to power one of its facilities.
Overall, industry participants expressed optimism about the future outlook for fuels.
“I definitely think this is the beginning of a trend,” said Ken Petersen, former president of the American Nuclear Association.
“It's driven by technology companies and the massive demand they're putting on the grid…that's the main driver, and that's going to bring a lot of other opportunities.” said.
The Inflation Control Act and Democrats' sweeping climate change, tax and health care bill also supported both nuclear power generation-specific tax credits and tax credits generally applicable to low-carbon energy sources.
Republicans have focused the law's incentives on climate-friendly energy sources, but some within the party want to preserve incentives for nuclear power.
Additionally, bipartisan legislation passed this summer is also expected to strengthen the industry by accelerating reactor licensing timelines and reducing fees.
Following Google's announcement earlier this week, the White House touted a policy that would “incentivize billions of dollars in private investment” in nuclear power.
“President Biden and Vice President Harris are making a big bet on America's energy potential, and the current administration's investments to revitalize our nuclear future are significant,” White House National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi said in a statement. It is producing results.”
“Across the country, we are seeing a strong resurgence of American energy innovation, from the revival of previously shuttered nuclear power plants to the commissioning of new technologies and new nuclear reactors,” Zaidi added.
