Amazon to invest in three nuclear energy projects

Amazon.com Inc. today announced plans to invest in three nuclear energy projects that will use a new type of miniature reactor to generate power.

The deals come on the heels of similar investments from the company’s top rivals in the cloud computing market. Over the past few weeks, Microsoft Corp. and Google LLC both announced plans to purchase nuclear energy for their data centers.

The first deal detailed by Amazon today is a $500 million funding round that it’s leading for X-energy LLC, a developer of so-called small modular reactors or SMRs. Those are compact reactors that can be build faster and at a lower cost than a traditional nuclear power plant. As a result, SMRs could potentially help generate power for cloud data centers.

X-energy will use the funding to expand its SMR equipment manufacturing capacity. According to Amazon, the equipment that the company plans to make will support nuclear energy projects with a projected power output of more than five gigawatts. One gigawatt corresponds to the power consumption of about one million households.

X-energy’s technology will be used, among others, to support one of the other nuclear energy projects that Amazon announced today. That deal is led by Energy Northwest, a consortium of state public utilities in the cloud computing and retail giant’s home state of Washington.

With Amazon’s support, Energy Northwest will develop four SMRs that are expected to come online early next decade. At the end of the project’s first phase, the reactors will generate 320 megawatts of power, or about one third of a gigawatt. Energy Northwest will have the option to triple that capacity to 960 megawatts down the line.

The third project that Amazon detailed today is a collaboration with utility Dominion Energy. The companies will explore the possibility of launching an SMR project near Dominion Energy’s existing North Anna nuclear power station. The plant is located in Virginia, which is home to many of Amazon Web Services Inc.’s cloud data centers.

“Nuclear is a safe source of carbon-free energy that can help power our operations and meet the growing demands of our customers, while helping us progress toward our Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero carbon across our operations by 2040,” said AWS Chief Executive Officer Matt Garman.

Amazon’s announcement of the three SMR deals comes days after rival Google also disclosed a significant investment in the technology. The search giant plans to purchase up to 500 megawatts of power from SMRs are set to be built by a startup called Kairos Power LLC. According to Google, the first reactor that will be constructed as part of the collaboration is scheduled to come online by the end of the decade.

Previously, a utility last month announced plans to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in order to supply power for Microsoft data centers. Constellation Energy Generation LLC, the largest renewable energy producer in the U.S., will spend $1.6 billion to renovate the facility. It’s expected to generate about 835,000 megawatts of electricity starting in 2028.

Photo: Tony Webster/Flickr