Lookout World. Amazon has decided to go nuclear. (No, really.)
Full disclosure, I have not made it a secret that I am actually in favor of increasing our nuclear power capacity in the United States. Now because of AI and the advent of server farms all across the country available electric power is going to be at a premium. That will eventually drive prices for electricity up wherever you live.
Google, Microsoft and now Amazon have all announced the intention to explore the possibility of using nuclear power for their server farms.
According to CNBC.com,
‘Amazon Web Services is investing more than $500 million in nuclear power, announcing three projects from Virginia to Washington state. AWS, Amazon’s subsidiary in cloud computing, has a massive and increasing need for clean energy as it expands its services into generative AI. It’s also a part of Amazon’s path to net-zero carbon emissions.’
Amazon is the largest tech company to look at using nuclear power to fuel their electricity needs, but other companies have also announced moving towards nuclear power, including Google buying power from SMR (small modular reactor) developer Kairos Power and Microsoft signing on to restart one of the reactors at Three Mile Island for their power needs.
It's a tremendous investment in infrastructure for these tech companies but it guarantees power for the next 70 years. (Not a bad tradeoff.)
We here in Eastern Washington think that there's a lot of data centers and server farms in Eastern Washington, but it's nothing compared to Virginia.
according to cnbc.com,
‘Virginia is home to nearly half of all the data centers in the U.S., with one area in northern Virginia dubbed Data Center Alley, the bulk of which is in Loudon County. An estimated 70% of the world’s internet traffic travels through Data Center Alley each day’
Greater use of nuclear power is coming whether you like it or not. It's time to learn more about SMR reactors and the advantages and possible disadvantages they bring.
Amazon goes nuclear, to invest more than $500 million to develop small modular reactors (cnbc.com)
Amazon goes nuclear, plans to invest more than $500 million to develop small modular reactors (msn.com)
Micro nuclear reactors are being built that can deliver 5MW of power for up to 100 months, producing a staggering 1.2 petawatt-hours of energy (msn.com)
10 interesting facts about Washington State's Hanford Nuclear Site
Gallery Credit: Rik Mikals