REM: Big Tech-fuelled nuclear revival poised in US, but there are risks

Power-hungry Big Tech is pushing for a nuclear revival in the US to fuel data centres with their increasing appetite for electricity because of AI searches, which require as much as 10 times the energy of a standard Google query.

Companies such as Google’s Alphabet, Amazon and Microsoft are keen for low-carbon power that is not intermittent, unlike wind and solar power.

Nuclear seems to fit the bill. There have been moves to revive old conventional nuclear power plants (NPPs), despite their cost, and to build dozens of small modular reactors (SMRs).

But there are risks, apart from the obvious radioactivity, terrorism and waste problem. SMRs are not yet commercially viable, and may take years to become so.

“There are only a few nuclear plants that can be recommissioned in an economic way,” and novel technologies like SMRs are still financially unfeasible, said NextEra Energy CEO John Ketchum recently, in a third quarter earnings call.

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