“The best time to build new nuclear plants was 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”
I’ve been urging the hyper-scale clouds to go nuclear for a couple years. They’ve all now stepped up and announced nuclear power plans.
It will be a long game as they navigate a labyrinth of licensing, lobbyists, litigation, and Luddites. Reactors need to be licensed, permitted, and built. Nuclear plant operators and grid operators, with conflicting interests, need to align and interconnect. Degrowthers and the otherwise dissatisfied will no doubt litigate to try to stop these plans. The earliest announced date for electrons flowing is 2028, with most expected in the 2030s.
We’ll track progress with our Cloud Reactor Tracker™:
All of these deals are Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) from existing or new nuclear plants. None of the hyperclouds, so far, are planning to own or operate their own reactors. There are some equity investments to help accelerate the design and deployment of new small modular reactors.
BIG LEAGUES
Amazon
Amazon has the most ambitious announced plans. They’re funding two small modular reactor projects as well as building a large data center adjacent to an existing nuclear plant.
Google is supporting development and deployment of the Kairos Power small modular reactor.
Meta
Meta was up to something next to an existing nuclear plant but got stung by bees.
Microsoft
Microsoft spurred the re-opening of Three Mile Island (the second reactor there that was shut down in 2019, not the one that melted down), from which they will take all the power. No small modular reactor play from them (yet?).
LITTLE LEAGUE
Beyond the hypercloud players, we have seen some teases from small CAPEX players:
Equinix
Equinix has made an advance payment on a PPA with small modular reactor company Oklo.
Oracle
I hate to even include Oracle here, as it feeds their dream to be seen as a hyper-scale cloud, despite being decidedly nano-scale (their CAPEX is small and declining).
But, with that disclaimer, I will note that Larry “Lawnmower” Ellison pretended to be talking off the cuff on an earnings call Q&A that Oracle was pursuing a data center with three small modular reactors. I think this was mostly an attempt to distract from the fact Oracle is struggling to build data centers and looking to small modular reactors that are years away (best case) underscores how unfavorable their position is in the queue for scarce power. No mention of where, when or what reactor design.
Speculation amongst people more knowledgeable than me is that they will try to site these reactors in Utah as an expansion of an existing Oracle data center.
UPDATES
Updates here as developments warrant. If you have more details, I’m all ears.