For some time, with the rapid development of artificial intelligence, its high energy consumption has attracted increasing attention. Against this background, American technology giants including Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have launched a nuclear energy investment boom. The New York Times reported on the 16th that Amazon announced that day that it would invest in a start-up company called X-Energy to develop small modular nuclear reactors. Google announced on Monday that it had reached a power purchase agreement with a start-up called KAIros Power, which is developing small modular nuclear reactors to generate electricity. Last month, Microsoft also announced an agreement with a nuclear energy company.
Anish Prabhu, managing director of S&P Global Ratings, believes that the best sustainable power supply solution for artificial intelligence and data centers is nuclear energy. Solar energy and wind energy have the characteristics of "depending on the sky" and poor reliability. Although the small modular nuclear reactor technology currently favored by American technology giants has not yet been successfully commercialized, the cost of a single reactor is expected to drop to about US$1 billion. In the future, it may be built directly next to data center facilities, with huge application potential.
The Washington Post reported that currently, no small modular nuclear reactor has been put into use in the United States, and only one design from NuScale Power has been approved by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
An article on Amazon’s official website shows that they will reach an agreement with the public utility alliance Energy Northwest to support the development of four advanced small modular nuclear reactors, which are expected to generate approximately 320 megawatts of power in the first phase of the project. X-energy's reactor design will be used in this project.
It is worth noting that the Biden administration in the United States recognizes the importance of nuclear energy in reducing emissions and supports the resumption of the development of the U.S. nuclear energy industry. Biden recently signed a bill passed by a bipartisan majority in Congress that its authors said would accelerate the development of new nuclear energy projects. Previously, many Democrats have been emphasizing the safety and environmental risks of nuclear energy and questioning the economic benefits of nuclear energy.
The support of American technology giants has certainly brought new impetus to the development of nuclear energy in the United States, but critics point out that the current wave of nuclear energy development has not fundamentally solved the long-standing safety and environmental concerns of nuclear energy, especially the issue of how to store nuclear waste. . In fact, the United States has previously talked about the so-called "nuclear energy renaissance", but it has not been realized. Statistics show that the United States has tried to build as many as 250 nuclear reactors since 1960, but more than half of the nuclear power projects were canceled before generating electricity, and none of the other nuclear reactors put into power generation were completed on time and within budget limits.