Why Meta, Google, and Amazon are Betting Billions on Nuclear
Another federal judge lifted a stop work order on a New England offshore wind project; a Virginia project seeks the same treatment.
Today, though, we’ll focus on prospects for fusion and fission.
In mid-December fusion company TAE announced a merger with the Trump Media Group, and said it will site and begin construction on a 50 MW fusion plant this year. TAE’s website targets the early 2030s for commercial fusion plants, and it just began site selection for a site of over 20 acres.
But a better fusion bet may be Commonwealth Fusion, with critical progress including manufacture of the first magnet needed for the magnetic bottle holding the fusion reaction – at temps of 180 million degrees F – hotter than the core of the sun.
Commonwealth is building a demonstration plant in Massachusetts while partnering with Nvidia and Siemens to develop digital representations of its machine to accelerate progress.
It also has two buyers. Google’s taking 200 MW from the first plant in Virginia. Italian energy company Eni is also buying output, in a deal worth over $1 billion.
In fission, Meta just announced deals with Generation 4 mini nuclear companies, Oklo and TerraPower. Gen 4 nuclear plants are designed to be smaller, fuel-efficient, fail-safe, using fuel from which it is harder to make nuclear weapons.
Meta’s deal will site a plant in Chicago - the first of up to 1,200 MW worth, with an online date as early as 2030.
Meta’s deal with Bill Gates-backed TerraPower specifies up to eight reactors, paired with energy storage systems. The first two reactors may start as early as 2032, eventually scaling to 2,600 MW of nuclear and 1,200 MW of storage.
Other hyperscalers are also active. Last year, Google, Kairos, and the Tennessee Valley Authority announced a 50 MW power purchase agreement between Kairos Power and TVA, to support Google data centers. Kairos and Google have a separate agreement for 500 MW of nuclear capacity by 2035.
Meanwhile, Amazon and X-energy announced a relationship with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, and Doosan Enerbility to accelerate the deployment X-energy’s reactors in the U.S., with a target of 5,000 MW across the country by 2039. Amazon already has its first sites, signing a deal with state public utility group Energy Northwest, four small reactors totaling 320 MW, and an option to grow to 960 MW.
There are other small nuclear companies such as NuScale and Holtec, but all face similar challenges.
They must: get designs approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; build and trial first reactors; construct their factories; and fill order books to achieve scale and cut costs.
A new workforce must also be developed, and NIMBY issues overcome. If solar and wind face local pushback, small nuclear plants will see even more.
But the cost issue will be critical, and NuScale serves as a cautionary example. Its original deal with the Utah Association of Municipal Power Systems was for $58/MWh. Post-COVID, that number soared to $89, and potential buyers exited.
The future of the fusion and fission industries will depend both on what they can achieve, as well as the health of competing technologies in the market. They may survive and thrive or be relegated to a small niche in the power game of tomorrow.