Artificial intelligence and its growing dominance in the data centers of the future poses both a real opportunity and a challenge for technology companies such as Facebook’s parent company, Meta Inc., who must therefore proactively “respond” to find options for new energy.
This expansion of AI and cloud-based capabilities is pushing tech giants to abandon purely renewable energy and trumpet their new commitment to nuclear power as a way to combine energy resilience with reducing carbon emissions. greenhouse gases.
Meta announced this week that it has issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to seek nuclear power developers who can help identify power generation to meet the future of AI and cloud capacity. Meta’s release follows a brief strategy report from online retail giant Amazon earlier this week, highlighting its confidence in future nuclear technologies such as small modular reactors (SMR).
“Supporting the development of clean energy must remain a priority as electricity networks expand to meet growing energy needs. » reads the press release announcing the request for proposals. “At Meta, we believe that nuclear energy will play a central role in the transition to a cleaner, more reliable and diverse electricity grid. »
Nuclear is unique among fuel resources for electricity generation in that reactors can operate at a constant high capacity rate while emitting no carbon dioxide. New companies are working to operate and commercialize SMR nuclear power plants, which are smaller, less expensive and more standardized than current conventional reactor plants such as Vogtle in Georgia. The Vogtle Units 3 and 4 expansion cost more than $32 billion to construct, complete and commission.
Companies wishing to submit a proposal for Meta have until February 7 to do so. They must also comply with a mutual non-disclosure agreement to be considered among the tenders.
“We are looking for developers with strong community engagement, permitting and enforcement expertise who provide opportunities to develop new nuclear energy resources – either small modular reactors or larger nuclear reactors” , we read in Meta’s nuclear call for tenders.
Earlier this week, Amazon celebrated World Nuclear Energy Day with a report outlining its seven strategies for future connection to SMRs and other reactor technologies.
Advanced, industrial-scale nuclear power generation is “an essential energy source that can be brought online at scale and has a decades-long history as a reliable source of safe, carbon-free energy worldwide,” reads Amazon’s press release. “We help develop new technologies, invest in existing nuclear reactors and support research on topics like nuclear fusion. »
Among other tech giants, companies like Microsoft, Oracle and Google have expressed continued interest and willingness to invest in supporting new nuclear capabilities to meet the anticipated energy demands of AI and building large-scale cloud-based data centers. Some forecasts call for more than 50 GW of new data centers to come online by the 2030s.
Meta itself is seeking tenders for between 1 and 4 GW of new U.S. nuclear generation capacity to support the trajectory of AI demand through 2032.
“Compared to the renewable energy projects we continue to invest in, such as solar and wind, nuclear energy projects require more capital, take longer to develop, are subject to more regulatory requirements and have a longer expected operational life,” the report reads. Meta-version announcing the call for tenders. “These differences mean we need to engage nuclear power projects earlier in their development cycle and consider their operational requirements when designing a contract.”
Conventional nuclear power plants, including more than 90 units in the United States, produce nearly 19% of total electricity at utility scale in the country, according to the Federal Energy Information Administration. These nuclear power plants also provide at least half of the carbon-free electricity produced in the United States.
SMR technologies have received some regulatory approvals on their designs, but none have yet begun to be built in the United States. Many industry experts warn that physical and operational SMRs likely won’t come online until the 2030s.
The data center industry, however, says it can wait a little longer to ensure basic carbon-free power for the AI revolution.
Due to coal plant closures, successful energy efficiency efforts, and increases in distributed energy resources, many U.S. utilities have been predicting steady load growth since the late 2010s. This short-term outlook term have sparked concern among data center customers about the utility sector’s ability to meet future demand.
Knowing that intermittent renewable energy such as wind and solar cannot provide reliable backup power to data centers, the industry is turning to the nuclear power sector. Microsoft recently signed a long-term power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy, which can help invest in restarting Three Mile Island Unit 1, which closed in Pennsylvania several years ago.
TMI Unit 1 is not the reactor unit that experienced a partial meltdown and was shut down decades ago.
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