Regardless of technological and regulatory hurdles, Amazon stays satisfied that small modular reactors (SMRs) are the reply to the cloud titan’s energy woes.
Final fall, the home of Bezos announced a $500 million funding in SMR startup X-Power. On Thursday, the e-tailer revealed that X-Power’s Xe-100 SMR designs would finally provide Washington State with “as much as” 960 megawatts of fresh vitality.
“Ultimately” is the important thing phrase right here as building is not anticipated to start out till the tip of the last decade and the crops will not start operations till someday within the 2030s.
The plan is to deploy the 80 megawatt reactors at a brand new facility referred to as the Cascade Nuclear Power Heart outdoors Richland, Washington, in three phases, every totaling 320 megawatts of generative output. For context, xAI’s 200,000-GPU Colossus supercomputer makes use of roughly 300 megawatts of energy when it’s totally utilized.
Amazon notes that X-Power’s SMRs needs to be smaller, quicker to deploy, and cheaper to function than standard pressurized water reactors. This can be a frequent argument in help of the miniaturized nuclear energy crops, but it surely’s value noting that the tech hasn’t really been confirmed out. Actually, higher-than-expected working prices have already doomed one early SMR challenge.
And that is not the one problem dealing with X-Power. The corporate’s SMR tech has but to obtain Nuclear Regulatory Fee approval, which is required earlier than building of the reactor itself can start. However that is not stopping Amazon from sharing 3D renders of what the facility plant would possibly seem like when full.
This is a 3D rendering of what the Cascade Nuclear Power Heart in Richland, Washington would possibly seem like if accomplished. – Click on to enlarge
Regardless of these limitations, Amazon stays assured within the know-how and plans to deploy 5 gigawatts value of X-Power SMRs by 2039. The 2 firms have even enlisted the assistance of South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Energy to assist them help the deployment of SMRs throughout the US.
Amazon is not the one one going all-in on atomic energy to gasoline its datacenter aspirations. Oracle plans to area at the very least three SMRs to energy a gigawatt scale nuclear reactor, although particular particulars stay skinny.
Google-backed Kairos Energy, in the meantime, plans to deploy a 50MW molten salt reactor outdoors Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory.
Very similar to X-Power Kairos Hermes 2 demonstrator is not anticipated to come back on-line till after 2030. Nonetheless, with NRC approval already in hand, Kairos stands a greater probability of delivering a working reactor on time.
With that mentioned, the corporate will nonetheless want the inexperienced mild earlier than it will probably really energy up the reactor for the primary time.
Within the meantime, cloud suppliers like Amazon Internet Companies and Microsoft are turning to extra standard sources of nuclear vitality to fulfill their vitality calls for with out fully abandoning their sustainability targets.
Early final 12 months, Amazon acquired Cumulus Information’s atomic datacenters in a deal valued at $650 million. The services, situated alongside the two.5 gigawatt Susquehanna nuclear energy plant in northeast Pennsylvania may finally scale to 960 megawatts underneath the deal.
Microsoft, in the meantime, helps to finance the re-ignition of the Three Mile Island Unit-1 reactor. And in case you are questioning, this is not the identical reactor that partially melted down again in 1979. The reactor is now anticipated to start operations once more beginning in 2027.
The Register reached out to X-Power concerning its timeline for NRC approval, however had not heard again on the time of publication. ®
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