Google signs nuclear power deal with startup Kairos Power. Google is
adding nuclear plants to its seemingly ever-growing portfolio.
The company has partnered with Kairos Power to back the construction of seven small nuclear reactors in the U.S. It’s
the first agreement of its kind.
The first plant is expected to come online by 2030, the company announced in a blog post. Other reactors will be deployed by 2035. All totaled, the deal will funnel 500 megawatts of power to the company’s AI technologies—enough to power a midsize city. “Nuclear solutions offer a clean, round-the-clock power source that can help us reliably meet electricity demands with carbon-free energy every hour of every day,” Google wrote in the blog post. “Advancing these power sources in close partnership with supportive local communities will rapidly drive the decarbonization of electricity grids around the world.”
The smaller reactors created by Kairos, a nuclear-energy
startup, are different from the towers most people think of when they conjure
up an image of a nuclear reactor. The company uses a molten salt cooling system
(much like the one that will be used for the on-site reactor being built on the
campus of Abilene Christian University), which operates at a lower pressure.
The company broke ground on a demonstration reactor, which will be unpowered,
earlier this year in Tennessee.
Google did not unveil the cost of the partnership. The project
site (or sites) have not yet been determined.
Google’s announcement comes weeks after Microsoft announced a partnership with Constellation Energy that will see the undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, resume operations to power Microsoft’s AI data centers.
Experts have warned data centers could become a big strain on
the U.S. power grid, with the nine-year projected growth forecast for North
America essentially doubling from where it stood a year ago. Last year, the
five-year forecast from Grid Strategies projected growth of 2.6%. That number
has since nearly doubled to 4.7%—and planners expect peak demand to grow by 38
gigawatts. In real-world terms, that’s sufficient to power 12.7 million homes.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-help-build-seven-nuclear-150545854.html
Amazon Web Services is investing over $500 million in nuclear
power, announcing three projects from Virginia to Washington State. AWS, Amazon’s subsidiary in cloud computing, has a
massive and increasing need for clean energy as it expands its services into
generative AI. It’s also a part of Amazon’s path to net-zero carbon emissions.
AWS announced it has signed an agreement with Dominion Energy, Virginia’s utility company, to explore the
development of a small modular nuclear reactor, or SMR, near Dominion’s
existing North Anna nuclear power station. Nuclear reactors produce no carbon
emissions.
An SMR is an advanced type of nuclear reactor with a smaller
footprint that allows it to be built closer to the grid. They also have faster
build times than traditional reactors, allowing them to come online sooner.
Amazon is the latest large tech company to buy into nuclear power to fuel
the growing demands from data centers. Earlier this week, Google announced it will purchase power from SMR developer Kairos Power. Constellation
Energy is restarting Three Mile Island to power Microsoft data centers
“We see the need for gigawatts of power in the coming years, and
there’s not going to be enough wind and solar projects to be able to meet the
needs, and so nuclear is a great opportunity,” said Matthew Garman, CEO of AWS.
“Also, the technology is really advancing to a place with SMRs where there’s
going to be a new technology that’s going to be safe and that’s going to be
easy to manufacture in a much smaller form.”
Virginia is home to nearly half of all the data centers in the
U.S., with one area in Northern Virginia dubbed Data Center Alley, the bulk of
which is in Loudon County. An estimated 70% of the world’s internet traffic
travels through Data Center Alley each day.
Dominion serves roughly 3,500 megawatts from 452 data centers
across its service territory in Virginia. About 70% is in Data Center Alley. A
single data center typically demands about 30 megawatts or greater, according
to Dominion Energy. Bob Blue, its president and CEO, said in a recent quarterly
earnings call that the utility now receives individual requests for 60
megawatts to 90 megawatts or greater. Dominion projects that power demand will
increase by 85% over the next 15 years. AWS expects the new SMRs to bring at
least 300 megawatts of power to the Virginia region.
“Small modular nuclear reactors will play a critical role in
positioning Virginia as a leading nuclear innovation hub,” said Virginia Gov.
Glenn Youngkin in a release. “Amazon Web Services’ commitment to this
technology and their partnership with Dominion is a significant step forward to
meet the future power needs of a growing Virginia.”
AWS plans to invest $35 billion by 2040 to establish multiple
data center campuses across Virginia, according to an announcement from
Youngkin last year.
″These SMRs will be powering directly into the grid, so they’ll go to power everything, part of that is the data centers, but everything that is plugged into the grid will benefit,” Garman added.
Amazon also announced a new agreement with utility company
Energy Northwest, a consortium of state public utilities, to fund the
development, licensing and construction of four SMRs in Washington State. The
reactors will be built, owned and operated by Energy Northwest but will provide
energy directly to the grid, which will also help power Amazon operations.
Under the agreement, Amazon will have the right to purchase
electricity from the first four modules. Energy Northwest has the option to
build up to eight additional modules. That power would also be available to
Amazon and Northwest utilities to power homes and businesses.
The SMRs will be developed with technology from Maryland-based
X-energy, a developer of SMRs and fuel. Along with Amazon’s other
announcements, Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund disclosed it is the lead anchor in
a $500 million financing round for X-Energy. The Climate Pledge Fund is its
corporate venture capital fund that invests in early-stage sustainability
companies. Other investors include Citadel Founder and CEO Ken Griffin,
affiliates of Ares Management Corporation, NGP and the University of Michigan.
“Amazon and X-energy are poised to define the future of advanced
nuclear energy in the commercial marketplace,” said X-energy CEO J. Clay Sell.
“To fully realize the opportunities available through artificial intelligence,
we must bring clean, safe, and reliable electrons onto the grid with proven
technologies that can scale and grow with demand.”
Last spring, AWS invested in a nuclear energy project with Talen
Energy, signing an agreement
to purchase nuclear power from the company’s existing Susquehanna Steam
Electric Station, a nuclear power station in Salem Township, Pennsylvania. AWS
also purchased the adjacent, nuclear-powered data center campus from Talen for
$650 million.
Comments
The Georgia Power expansion of the latest Nuclear Power Facility was finally completed behind schedule and over budget. The Regulations and Requirements that were imposed need to be studied. The US abandoned nuclear power in the 1980s and everybody forgot how to build them. Technical Experts need to certify all new plans going forward. The Bureaucrats who wrote the requirements for the Georgia Power plant need to be replaced.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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