October 16, 2024 – 9:56 pm
Amazon Web Services is investing more than $500 million in nuclear development. CNBC reported. Amazon's cloud services company announced three pilot nuclear power projects in the United States to meet its huge and growing energy needs.
AWS recently announced that it has signed an agreement with Virginia-based Dominion Energy to jointly explore the potential to develop a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) near Dominion's existing North Anna nuclear power plant.
Amazon is no longer the first in a line of big tech companies to enter the nuclear energy space. The growing demand for power in data centers is pushing companies more and more towards nuclear power, although so far it has been a matter of purchase intent, rather than specific developments. Earlier this week, Google announced it would buy power from SMR developer Kairos Power, and earlier it was revealed that a company called Constellation Energy was repowering the Three Mile Island power plant to power Microsoft's data centres.
According to an announcement by Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin last year, AWS plans to invest $35 billion in its data centers by 2040, so additional capacity will be needed. Virginia is also home to many similar companies, and part of its territory is called Data Canter Alley, in reference to the fact that 70 percent of the world's Internet traffic passes through here every day.
Amazon is also embarking on a similar project in Washington state, where it has signed an agreement with Energy Northwest, a consortium of state utilities, to develop four modular power plants. The reactors will be built, owned and operated by Energy Northwest, but will feed power directly into the grid, which will also help Amazon operate.
The SMRs were jointly developed with Maryland-based X-energy Technology, which supplies the SMRs and fuel. Most of the $500 million (184 billion HUF) funding for X-Energy was also provided by Amazon's venture capital fund, which invests in early-stage sustainability companies.
