Accelerating the Commercialization of Advanced Nuclear Energy: The Case of X-energy, Nu Scale, NuScale, and Amazon
As a result of its deal with Kairos Power, up to 500megawatts of carbon-free energy could eventually be brought to the US power grids. Kairos broke ground on its first demonstration reactor in Tennessee in July.
By 2020, the company set a goal of running on carbon-free energy around the clock. It committed to cutting pollution in half by the year 2030. And yet, since 2019, its total greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 48 percent, according to its latest environmental report.
“Obviously, the trajectory of AI investments has added to the scale of the task needed,” CEO Sundar Pichai said in an interview with Nikkei earlier this month. “We are now looking at additional investments, be it solar, and evaluating technologies like small modular nuclear reactors, etc.”
The projects are subject to regulatory approval and could face economic challenges. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission certified a design for a small modular reactor for the first time in January 2023, a design by a company called NuScale Power. By November, Nu Scale had to abandon its plans to build a demonstration power plant.
The agreement for multiple deployment is an important way to speed up the commercialization of advanced nuclear energy by demonstrating the technical viability, according to the press release.
Amazon has three new agreements with it two days after the first of its kind deal was cut by Google.
X-energy announced a $500 million Series C-1 financing round today “anchored by” Amazon. Beyond the project in Washington, the money is supposed to support the “completion of X-energy’s reactor design and licensing” and the development of a fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. By 2039, X-energy says it will be able to bring more than 5,000 new SMR projects on stream in the US, which would be the biggest commercial deployment target of SMRs yet. Two companies plan to establish and standardize a deployment and financing model to develop projects in partnership with infrastructure and utility partners.
Nuclear reactors are also an appealing option for data centers that run around the clock because, unlike solar and wind farms, they can generate electricity regardless of the weather or time of day. SMRs are also supposed to be faster to build and easier to site than larger traditional nuclear power plants.
Nuclear energy still faces opposition from advocates concerned about the potential environmental and health risks that come with mining and enriching uranium for reactors and storing radioactive waste.
“It’s time for Big Tech to recommit to solutions that work and pose less risk to our environment and health, including making data centers as energy efficient as possible and committing them to be powered by new renewable energy sources,” Johanna Neumann, a senior director at the Environment America Research & Policy Center, said in a statement released after Google’s SMR announcement this week.