Nuclear power is intended to at least partially cover the rapidly increasing power consumption of data centers for artificial intelligence. The data companies Microsoft and Google are pursuing this strategy; now Amazon.com is following suit. But while Microsoft and Google have committed to purchasing nuclear power from entire reactors for years, Amazon is investing directly.
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The group presented three projects on Thursday. At the center is the company X-energy, which is developing both new nuclear reactors and proprietary fuel for them. Amazon, several venture capitalists and the University of Michigan are all investing 500 million dollars in X-energy.
At the same time, Amazon would like to ensure that the so-called Small Modular Reactors (SMR) with gas cooling developed by X-energy are also accepted. For that The data company is financing a feasibility study; It is intended to show that such SMRs can be added to the existing Columbia Generating Station nuclear power plant in Benton County, Washington. In return, Amazon receives a right of first refusal: If the power producer Energy Northwest implements such a project, Amazon’s cloud and AI service AWS (Amazon Web Services) can have all the electricity from the first four new nuclear reactors. That would correspond to a total of 320 megawatts of capacity. However, Energy Northwest is already thinking about twelve such reactors at the same location.
Nuclear power on both US coasts
However, the largest concentration of AI data centers in the USA is not in the west coast state of Washington, but rather not far from the city of Washington in the east coast state of Virginia. An even higher increase in electricity consumption is expected there. The government of Washington state expects electricity consumption there to double within 25 years. In Virginia, this should happen in 15 years, says the power plant operator Dominion Energy Virginia. Amazon has agreed on a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with this company.
What that means in concrete terms remains to be seen. “The MoU documents the efforts of the (two companies) to jointly explore innovative ways to promote SMR development and financing,” it remains Message unclear. In addition, “costs and development risks should be mitigated”. Dominion Energy expressly does not want to accept any additional risks.
Google is relying on new nuclear reactors, Microsoft on old nuclear reactors
This week, Google committed to completely take over the electricity production of several Kairos SMRs for an undisclosed period of time, up to 500 megawatts of power. Kairos is developing SMR with salt cooling, which is currently not ready for the market.
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Microsoft, on the other hand, is inciting the energy supplier Constellation to revive a nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island that was built between 1969 and 1978. It was shut down in 2019 for economic reasons, but with Microsoft paying a hefty price for all electricity production for another 20 years, the reactor is scheduled to come back online in 2028.
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