Alphabet’s Google said Monday it has signed the world’s first corporate deal to buy power from multiple small modular reactors to meet electricity demand for artificial intelligence.
The technology company’s deal with Kairos Power aims to bring Kairos’ first small modular reactor online by 2030, followed by an additional deployment by 2035.
The companies did not disclose the financial details of the deal or where in the US the factories will be built. Google said it agreed to buy a total of 500 megawatts of power from six to seven reactors, which is less than the output of today’s nuclear reactors.
“We think nuclear power can play an important role in meeting our demand … in a clean, more 24/7 way,” Michael Terrell, Google’s senior director of energy and climate, told reporters.
Tech companies have signed several recent deals with nuclear power companies this year as artificial intelligence increases demand for energy for the first time in decades.
In March, Amazon.com bought a nuclear-powered data center from Talen Energy. Last month, Microsoft and Constellation Energy signed a power deal to help revive a unit of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, the site of America’s worst nuclear accident in 1979.
U.S. data center energy use is expected to roughly triple between 2023 and 2030 and will require about 47 gigawatts of new generating capacity, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, which assume natural gas, wind and solar will fill the gap.
Kairos will need to obtain full construction and design permits from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as permits from local agencies, a process that could take years.
Kairos received a construction permit from the NRC late last year to build a demonstration reactor in Tennessee.
“The NRC is prepared to effectively and appropriately review applications for new reactors,” said Scott Burnell, an NRC spokesman.
Small modular reactors should be smaller than today’s reactors with components built in a factory, rather than on site, to reduce construction costs.
Critics say SMR will be expensive because it may not be able to achieve the economies of scale of larger plants. In addition, it is likely to produce long-lived nuclear waste for which the country does not yet have a final disposal site.
Google said that by committing to a so-called order book framework with Kairos, rather than buying one reactor at a time, it is sending a demand signal to the market and making a long-term investment in accelerating the development of SMRs.
“We are confident that this new approach will improve the odds that our projects will be delivered on cost and on schedule,” said Mike Laufer, CEO and co-founder of Kairos.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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