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Meta is turning to nuclear energy to power its AI ambitions with the release a request for proposals to partner with nuclear energy developers.
It’s the latest announcement in a string of recent deals Big Tech companies have made to secure nuclear energy for their data centers. Developing new AI tools is an energy-intensive endeavor that risks derailing Silicon Valley’s sustainability goals unless it can find less polluting sources of electricity. Meta now joins Amazon, Microsoft, and Google in efforts to get more nuclear reactors up and running.
That’s much easier said than done. The first all-new nuclear reactor to be built in the US in decades started running in 2023 — seven years overdue and $17 billion over budget. Developers are now designing next-generation technology called small modular reactors (SMRs) that are supposed to make it easier to build and site a project, ostensibly cutting down costs. Those advanced reactors aren’t expected to become commercially viable until the 2030s.
Meta says it’s interested in both SMRs and larger reactors, and is searching for partners who “who will ultimately permit, design, engineer, finance, construct, and operate these power plants.” Its goal is to add 1-4 gigawatts of new nuclear generation capacity in the US by the early 2030s. For context, 54 nuclear power plants across the nation currently have a combined capacity of roughly 97GW and generate about 19 percent of the US electricity mix.
After decades of aging reactors shutting down, the nuclear landscape is starting to change as companies look for ways to generate electricity without producing the carbon emissions causing climate change. Nuclear power plants have increasingly been seen as a carbon pollution-free source of electricity that can fill in for solar and wind farms when the sun sets and gales weaken.
“We believe nuclear energy will play a pivotal role in the transition to a cleaner, more reliable, and diversified electric grid,” Meta’s announcement says. It’s not alone.
Amazon bought a nuclear-powered data center campus in March, and then inked a few more deals in October to support the development of SMRs. Google announced an agreement in October to eventually purchase electricity from SMRs to be built between 2030 and 2035. Microsoft signed a power purchase agreement in September to restart a shuttered reactor at Three Mile Island.
Under the Biden administration, the US crafted a roadmap to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050. The Inflation Reduction Act signed into law in 2022 provides crucial investment and tax incentives to help make that happen. And while President-elect Donald Trump is expected to try to dismantle much of Joe Biden’s clean energy legacy, nuclear energy happens to have relatively strong bipartisan support and Trump has indicated that he supports it.
Given the long lead times to construct a new plant — and since advanced technologies will still have to prove that they can work at scale — all these splashy nuclear deals are unlikely to help the US meet
its short-term climate goals.
President Joe Biden committed the US to cutting greenhouse gas emissions roughly in half from peak levels by 2030 under the Paris agreement, which Trump now says he’ll renege on. And beyond building new reactors, the US still faces conundrums when it comes to responsibly securing uranium for fuel and figuring out where to safely store radioactive waste.
