How Amazon Is Betting Big On Nuclear Reactors To Power Its Data Centers

Forbes

As Amazon announces three major nuclear deals, AWS CEO Matt Garman told Forbes he sees unique potential for advanced, small reactors to provide widespread clean power.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2024/10/16/amazon-is-betting-big-on-small-nuclear-reactors-to-power-its-data-centers/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Friday, October 18.

00:05Today on Forbes, Amazon is betting big on small nuclear reactors to power its data centers.

00:13Amazon is betting big on nuclear power to help drive a massive data center expansion

00:18that includes more than $52 billion across just three U.S. states.

00:24Amazon and Dominion Energy, the $48 billion market cap energy behemoth, announced Wednesday

00:30that they've entered into an agreement to explore the development of small modular reactors,

00:35a type of advanced nuclear reactor less than 10% the size of a traditional nuclear plant

00:40in Virginia.

00:42Amazon simultaneously announced an agreement to fund the development and deployment of

00:46small modular reactors in Washington state with the public power agency Energy Northwest.

00:53Amazon signed a separate agreement with X-Energy, a developer of small modular reactors, also

00:58known as SMRs, that is building one as part of the partnership with Energy Northwest.

01:03The startup is currently building its first advanced reactor with chemical giant Dow in

01:08Seadrift, Texas.

01:10As part of its agreement with X-Energy, Amazon is anchoring a $500 million investment in

01:15the startup, which was founded by billionaire serial entrepreneur Cam Ghaffarian in 2009

01:21through its Climate Pledge Fund.

01:24Through this deal, Amazon and X-Energy plan to bring more than 5 gigawatts of new power

01:28projects online across the United States by 2039, enough to power more than one mid-sized

01:35city in an effort to meet the ballooning power needs of artificial intelligence.

01:40Amazon, as well as other major data center providers like Microsoft and Google, are looking

01:45to these small modular reactors to serve their rapidly growing power needs.

01:51SMRs can be built in less time and at lower cost than traditional nuclear power plants.

01:56Plus, they're carbon-free, key to the tech giant's broad commitments to reduce emissions.

02:02And unlike solar or wind power, they're reliable and can operate 24 hours a day, a

02:07key advantage for data centers and factories.

02:10The U.S. Department of Energy has said that U.S. nuclear capacity has the potential to

02:14triple from 100 gigawatts in 2024 to 300 gigawatts by 2050 to meet the demands of

02:21both decarbonization and nonstop power.

02:24Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon's cloud computing company Amazon Web Services, or AWS, told

02:31Forbes, quote,

02:32Nuclear is a great option for how we scale the world's energy needs.

02:36We need more energy brought to the grid.

02:38He added that SMRs are the, quote, most promising new technology to do that.

02:44Garman, who started at Amazon as a summer intern in 2005 and became AWS's third CEO

02:50in June, said that he expected nuclear to be an important piece of how the company continued

02:55to expand its data centers to meet demand, while also reaching its goal of net zero across

03:00its operations by 2040.

03:02He declined to give targets for how much of AWS's power needs would be supplied by nuclear,

03:07but said he hoped it would be a, quote, material source of power generation by 2040.

03:12Garman said, quote,

03:14We view it as a cost-effective way to scale up energy.

03:17And he added, quote,

03:19It depends how fast the technology evolves and how rapidly we can scale building new reactors.

03:25But while nuclear power does not release greenhouse gases, it requires managing radioactive waste.

03:31And despite lots of talk in recent months about the development of SMRs, none have opened

03:36in the United States to date, leaving unanswered questions about their expense and feasibility.

03:42Doug Vine, director of energy analysis at the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions,

03:47said that the costs, quote,

03:49are a bit of a moving target now.

03:51Garman said that while the technology is new, it has advanced dramatically in recent years,

03:55and that new advanced nuclear reactors are far safer than the old plants of the 1950s and 60s.

04:01It's been 45 years since a nuclear reactor, Three Mile Island, near Middletown, Pennsylvania,

04:07melted down in what was the most serious accident in U.S. commercial nuclear plant

04:11operating history.

04:12Now, a different reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant is slated to reopen,

04:17in order to power Microsoft's data centers.

04:21For full coverage, check out Amy Feldman's piece on Forbes.com.

04:26This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.

04:29Thanks for tuning in.

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