For 5 years, Reactor one at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant has been idling. Now, due to a cope with Microsoft, the reactor can be again on-line in 2028—this time to supply the tech firm with a ton of low-carbon electrical energy solely.
It’s all a part of an ongoing flirtation between Big Tech and nuclear energy. In March, Amazon Web Services agreed to purchase a nuclear-powered information middle in Susquehanna station in PennsylvaniaAt an occasion at Carnegie Mellon University on September 18, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai small modular nuclear reactors mentioned as a possible energy supply for information facilities. The connections don’t finish there: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman chairs the boards of nuclear startups Oklo and Helion Energy.
The increase in synthetic intelligence has prompted tech corporations to hunt low-carbon vitality sources to energy their information facilities. The International Energy Agency I estimate that electrical energy demand from AI, information facilities, and cryptocurrencies might greater than double by 2026. Even its conservative estimates say the extra demand can be equal to all of the electrical energy utilized in Sweden or, within the case of excessive utilization, Germany.
This surge in vitality demand is music to the ears of the nuclear trade. Electricity demand within the United States has been comparatively flat for many years, however the scale and depth of the AI increase is altering that dynamic. A December 2023 report from an energy consultancy firm declared the period of flat energy demand over, due to rising demand from information facilities and industrial amenities. The report forecasts that peak electrical energy demand within the United States will develop by 38 gigawatts by 2028, roughly equal to 46 occasions the output of Three Mile Island reactor one.
“(AI) is de facto taking off and getting numerous consideration within the vitality trade,” says John Kotek, senior vice chairman of coverage growth and public affairs on the nuclear trade commerce affiliation Nuclear Energy Institute. Kotek says there’s additionally a nationwide safety side. “People legitimately see AI as a contest between the U.S. and our international rivals.” The incontrovertible fact that the U.S. has lagged behind within the AI race as a result of it doesn’t have sufficient energy “is one thing that’s actually making individuals listen,” he says.
Nuclear energy is enticing to tech corporations as a result of it offers low-carbon electrical energy across the clock, not like photo voltaic and wind, which run intermittently except paired with some type of vitality storage. Restarting reactor one will present Microsoft with 835 megawatts of low-carbon energy over the 20-year time period of the deal. Because Microsoft has dedicated to be carbon negative by 2030AI’s quickly rising demand for electrical energy poses a significant risk to the corporate’s local weather plans except it could discover low-carbon vitality sources. In 2023, Microsoft’s emissions increased by 29 percent in comparison with 2020, primarily pushed by the development of latest information facilities.
The Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant has two reactors. Reactor 2 was notorious for being the positioning of a partial meltdown in 1979 and has been offline ever since. But reactor 1 continued to function with out incident till 2019, when it was taken offline for monetary causes, primarily attributable to competitors from gas-fired and wind-fired electrical energy. Kotek says there are comparatively few idle reactors that might be introduced again on-line pretty rapidly, however that many energy plant homeowners are concerned about extending the working licenses of their current vegetation to attempt to trip the wave of AI vitality.
