Big Tech Turns To Nuclear Energy

Zoe Lee

New York City, USA

Photo by Lukáš Lehotský on Unsplash

Despite historical opposition, nuclear energy has recently seen a huge wave of support from Silicon Valley’s tech giants. Nuclear energy is generated by nuclear reactors in a nuclear power plant through initiating a controlled fission chain reaction, which is typically started using uranium. The heat emitted from this reaction is then used to boil water, producing steam. Finally, this steam turns the large turbines which generate electricity. The energy generated by these reactors currently accounts for 20% of the United States’ energy usage. France is the current global leader in nuclear energy, producing 70% of its energy through nuclear power plants. However, in the past decade, other countries such as China and South Korea have gained considerable momentum in their nuclear industries, accelerated by government support.

Despite all nuclear power plants in the United States being privately owned, the government has invested a significant amount into nuclear energy infrastructure. After all, it was the US government that first harnessed nuclear fission through the Manhattan Project during WWII. In recent years, government support has grown rapidly. Most notably, former President Biden passed the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which offers $30 billion in tax credits for nuclear energy projects. Nuclear advancement has received bipartisan support, as seen with the Accelerating Deployment of Versatile, Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy Act of 2024, or ADVANCE Act, passed in Congress with support from both ends of the political spectrum. At the recent U.N. Climate Summit (COP29) in Baku, Azerbaijan, the United States pledged to add 35 GW of new nuclear capacity by 2035 and achieve a sustained pace of 15 GW of nuclear energy per year by 2040 to help mitigate global warming. At last year’s COP28, the United States declared that it aimed to triple its nuclear capacity by 2050. President Donald Trump has stated that he is in favor of nuclear energy, as it allows the United States to achieve energy independence and not rely on foreign countries for oil. Under his tenure, it seems likely that he will expand the country’s capacity for nuclear energy.

In the last six months, however, a new powerful group has taken interest in the expansion of nuclear energy: Big Tech. This pro-nuclear fever is being driven by the industry’s recent expansion of AI operations. This has resulted in a large demand for energy, as AI datacenters require a massive and consistent flow of power, leaving many companies so desperate that they have been willing to pay above market rates for energy. In order to satisfy their needs, many of these companies have turned to nuclear energy. In fact, Microsoft is planning on re-starting the decommissioned Three Mile Island, a Pennsylvanian nuclear power plant which was shut down after a partial reactor meltdown. Google and Kairos Power have teamed up to develop small modular reactors (SMRs), a new type of reactor which would be much smaller and easier to maintain than normal reactors. Currently, only Russia and China have discovered how to develop SMRs. This new type of technology is quickly gaining traction, with Amazon investing in X-energy and Dominion Energy, and finalizing a deal with Constellation Energy to support their development. Finally, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman is backing nuclear startup Oklo to develop SMRs, and is chairing the board of Helion Energy.

Many have referred to this wave of support as the “Nuclear Renaissance,” and many climate change activists have expressed excitement, as nuclear energy releases little CO2. This is comparable to wind-powered energy and a third of the amount released by solar-powered energy. This could mark the national transition to clean energy that many have been hoping for for decades. However, despite all of its potential benefits, nuclear energy does have some downsides.

The main critique against nuclear energy is the waste it produces. Nuclear waste may not deteriorate over the course of hundreds of years, but it has also been linked to many health risks, such as cancer, respiratory diseases, leukemia, heart diseases, and a lower life expectancy. The waste has also historically been mismanaged by the U.S. government. Many containers were stored in structures that have been described as “leaky.” There have been instances of dams leaking large amounts of radioactive waste, such as a 1979 dam breach in Church Rock, New Mexico, where over 1100 tons of radioactive mill waste was spilled into the environment. The current solution that scientists have agreed upon for effective waste management is storing it in a large underground chamber. However, no final location has been agreed upon, as every site has been deemed unsafe; either the chamber was too close to a water reservoir, or located in an area that is prone to earthquakes. A proposal was made in 1987 to store nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain, Nevada, but political gridlock and local opposition brought the effort to a standstill. Thus, a solution remains to be found.

An additional downside to nuclear power plants is the way that they are cooled. Power plants often use water to cool the core of their reactors, and after flushing the water through their system, they release it back out into the body of water they drew it from originally. This is why many nuclear power plants were built by large bodies of water, such as lakes or rivers. Many have expressed concerns about harming the biodiversity or fishing endeavors in these waters, in addition to opposing the contamination of water sources that could be utilized for daily use or as a location that the public can use for leisure (e.g. swimming, boating, canoeing).

However, there is optimism that these issues will be resolved. A common hope is that these large and innovative corporations will devote resources to developing solutions to these problems as they build their reactors. Nuclear energy is rapidly gathering public support, and as a result, it will be very exciting to see where this momentum leads.