Amazon, Google and Meta Support Tripling Nuclear Power By 2050 (cnbc.com) 68
Amazon, Alphabet's Google and Meta Platforms on Wednesday said they support efforts to at least triple nuclear energy worldwide by 2050. From a report: The tech companies signed a pledge first adopted in December 2023 by more than 20 countries, including the U.S., at the U.N. Climate Change Conference. Financial institutions including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley backed the pledge last year.
The pledge is nonbinding, but highlights the growing support for expanding nuclear power among leading industries, finance and governments. Amazon, Google and Meta are increasingly important drivers of energy demand in the U.S. as they build out AI centers. The tech sector is turning to nuclear power after concluding that renewables alone won't provide enough reliable power for their energy needs. Microsoft and Apple did not sign the statement.
The pledge is nonbinding, but highlights the growing support for expanding nuclear power among leading industries, finance and governments. Amazon, Google and Meta are increasingly important drivers of energy demand in the U.S. as they build out AI centers. The tech sector is turning to nuclear power after concluding that renewables alone won't provide enough reliable power for their energy needs. Microsoft and Apple did not sign the statement.
Okay cool. (Score:5, Insightful)
So pay for it.
Amazon, Google, and Meta have a combined market cap of about $5.7 Trillion. They can afford it, they'll reap the sole benefits of it, so they should pay for it. We cut people off from food stamps if they dare make a dollar over some arbitrary cutoff, so perhaps we should stop letting trillion dollar multinational corps suck money from taxpayers to enrich themselves even more.
=Smidge=
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It's based on the federal poverty level, so it's designed to stop helping people if they start getting out of poverty. The FPL is based on average wages for poor people. Average wages for poor people are based on the minimum wage. The federal minimum wage has never kept pace with inflation.
It's not arbitrary, it's evil.
I hurt fascist feefees (Score:1)
This weapon kills fascist arguments (points to keyboard)
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FANNG build close to power plants in order to lower costs for new power lines. The only reason residential users, as an example, would have to pay more for grid costs would be because of increasing use of heat pumps and resistance heating to replace natural gas and fuel oil heat, and because of using BEVs and PHEVs to replace ICEVs.
My heat is from natural gas. I had an air source heat pump for years until the controller board decided to die, after that the heat pump was only for cooling since I was able t
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we will pay for an pack of homers to run the plant (Score:2)
we will pay for an pack of homers to run the plant
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This statement is entirely pointless, because none of those companies are electricity generators. They could be - but that is a diversification, and so an entirely new business line for each of them to consider.
We all pay, those companies included, for future nuclear/coal/gas/solar through our electricity bills. The electricity companies collecting those fees ought to be investing in the future. If they aren't, then it's a market failure - since electricity generation and distribution isn't really a 'free m
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Taxpayers aren't an electricity generator either, but the alternative to what the OP is asking for is that we foot the bill. Power companies themselves have always been reluctant to invest in Nuclear without massive government subsidies.
If they want an expensive method of electricity generation, let them pay for it.
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If they want an expensive method of electricity generation, let them pay for it.
They support nuclear power because they know it is cheaper than the alternatives. Maybe they are willing to pay more for nuclear power because it is a reliable source of electricity, which is just another way of pointing out that batteries (or whatever) in addition to renewable energy to get a reliable electricity supply costs them more than nuclear fission.
If we have companies like Amazon and Google willing to foot the bill on reliable electricity supplies then we won't need any government subsidies to g
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If it's so much cheaper than the alternatives, why aren't they putting up the capital to build instead of pledging support for non-binding resolutions that amount to nothing more than a joint press release asking for someone else to spend the billions of dollars? Seems like a solid investment to me, especially since they would be the primary commercial customers of any such generation for all their AI horseshit.
Oh, can't answer that, can you?
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I can answer that.
How can a private corporation make any kind of binding agreement to put up money for nuclear power when for the last 30 years we've seen maybe three nuclear power reactors reach completion? Who would be on the other side of this binding agreement? Would they make this agreement with the NRC? The NRC has been openly hostile to issuing new construction permits for a very long time. Would they make this agreement with the US Department of Energy? I believe the DOE has the authority to is
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So you never thought that Google, et. al. could set up an agreement with an existing operator of nuclear energy to fund construction through capital investment and not have to develop the expertise themselves.
Seems you haven't really thought through how this works, but instead tried to grind your gears on coming up with a silly analogy that doesn't even remotely cover a standard mode of doing this kind of business: VC funding.
There's a reason why this was a "omg someone should build 300% more nuclear power
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I don't know why you believe that these companies can't or won't put up capital for building new nuclear power plants if you've read the fine article. Here's a bit from that:
Amazon and Google announced investments last October to help launch small nuclear reactors, technology still under development that the industry hopes will reduce the cost and timelines that have plagued new reactor builds in the U.S.
Meta issued a call in December for nuclear developers to submit proposals to help the tech company add up to 4 gigawatts of new nuclear power in the U.S.
The pledge signed Wednesday was led by the World Nuclear Association on the sidelines of the CERAWeek by S&P Global energy conference in Houston.
They've made investments in nuclear power in the past, and at least Meta is actively seeking developers to build nuclear power plants. I guess that announcement from Meta doesn't explicitly say that they'd provide funds but if they are paying people to take proposals submitted and have them looked over then that is money they are spen
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"made investments in the past" in small scale things that don't exist in any actual capacity is far different from "someone needs to go build 200 new PWRs and find their own money to do it"
When they announce a capital investment of tens of billions of dollars, then you'll have a point. But they haven't done that, have they?
Thanks for still not understanding.
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Thanks for still not understanding.
Right back at you.
This needs to start somewhere, and it starts with indicating support. If there's enough interest shown from investors, construction companies, and politicians, then they can know they can open up their wallets and know that they aren't wasting their money on dead end projects.
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> This statement is entirely pointless, because none of those companies are electricity generators
They don't have to be. They can commission a power plant from another company and pen a deal to buy the power, or even spin off a joint venture/subsidiary shell company to built and/or operate it.
=Smidge=
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> They can commission a power plant from another company
That's sort of the point - they already do this by paying their bills (or rather, that's what's supposed to happen in a properly functioning market).
> or even spin off a joint venture/subsidiary shell company to built and/or operate it.
To be blunt, so could you - but you won't because (a) it takes a lot of money, and (b) some expertise you probably don't have and (c) it's a massive distraction from your normal life. They won't for all the same re
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> That's sort of the point
No, they just want someone else to front the money and build a new powerplant that they'll use. I'm saying they should directly pay for the damn thing.
> To be blunt, so could you - but you won't because ...because I'm not a trillion-dollar multinational corporation, yes. Really that's a dumb observation...
> Why the hell should an advertising company have to become a power generator?
Which one is the advertising company? They need the power for their AI bullshit. Okay cool y
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> Outsourcing is when you pay someone else to do it for you
Which they have, by paying for their current use of electricity.
To take your rubbish analogy, they've paid for someone to take theirs away. That person has filled the local landfill and hasn't yet spent the time/money to create a new one, or perhaps to even properly process the one they do have. As I've said, due to market failure.
You clearly don't like AI ("their AI bullshit"), and that's fine. However, if it's not this, it'll be the next thing.
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> Which they have, by paying for their current use of electricity
The cost of the power plant - not just construction but also maintenance and decommissioning - would be distributed to everyone connected to the grid. They pay a fraction of the true cost meanwhile everyone else pays the bulk of it. Even if they buy 100% of the power it generates, because of the way the wholesale electricity market works you and me would be subsidizing the profits of a trillion-dollar multinational corporation through our u
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As I keep saying... market failure.
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Ok, cool cool.
We'll pay for the refining and disposal, they can reap the electricity.
No. No we won't.
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This is a reaction to the new US government. They are hoping for some free taxpayer money.
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Exactly. They are hoping to get a lot of taxpayer money by way of excessively expensive generated nuclear power being sold to them for cheap. The current political climate of grandstanding, incompetence, disconnect, old and obsolete ideas and hiding the real cost makes that move look good. If you have no morals or integrity. Obviously, big-tech is not restricted by those.
They are probably also hoping that Elonias current destruction of the federal government will degrade decision making processes enough for
Sick, Sad World (Score:3)
Sounds about par for the course.
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To be fair, they don't really care if it's taxpayer money or some other commercial entity's money.
They just really want it to be someone else's money. That's why they are happy to put out a joint press release asking for *someone* to build a shitload of nuclear power, but don't dare look in their direction regardless of trillion dollar valuations.
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Indeed. But what they really want here is energy for cheap that is the most expensive to generate. They are trying to capitalize from the revitalized stupidity that nuclear power is somehow a good idea or worth the cost. And hence there would be a huge bill for the taxpayer.
Typical corporate assholes that only know how to take, take, take. And obviously they will not finance any of this themselves, because they know it would be a really bad investment into an obsolete technology.
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Nuclear power is the most expensive to generate? Do you have a source for that? I can take a quick look at Wikipedia and see that nuclear power costs less than solar, with possible exception of large scale fixed axis PV.
You need to learn to read. Or maybe to lie less. (Yes, I know lying is your thing, but hey, I can hope...)
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I see. You call me a liar but provide no source to prove I lied. That may work on the internet but in the real world that isn't going to fly.
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Did you even look at the chart you linked? Or are you just hoping nobody would click on it and immediately see that you're wrong?
The low prices for nuclear in your source are for EXISTING nuclear. Obviously we can't expand EXISTING generation without uprating, and if they could uprate existing reactors they already would have.
We're talking about NEW here. And when it comes to new, nuclear loses to just about everything unless you're looking at 10+ year old IPCC (2014) data, which would make you look pret
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Its cheap if you get someone else to pay for the expensive parts.
Government's gotta oversee -pay for- refining bc you dont want that hot stuff getting loose.
Government's gotta take care of disposal bc the businesses that were using all that cheap ! electricity all went out of business.
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Let's allow them to do so first.
Then I support 100%.
Working families shouldn't have to compete with AI for scarce electricity in an infrastructure that humans built.
They're trying to make us pay for it. (Score:3)
There is local legislation for Small Nuclear Reactors here now, where they want us to pay for them so they can build data centers here.
I saw an article about this earlier this morning, which also said that the only functional ones in the world are in China and Russia. So they want us to be guinea pigs too.
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So pay for it.
Yep. Non-binding support means that they want more electricity at low prices and they support someone else doing whatever is needed to give them that cheap electricity.
Power sinks (Score:5, Insightful)
All of this time we've been told to conserve power, go green, etc. Now all of that conservation is just going down the drain of AI, bitcoin farms and data centers. How about THEY start cutting back?
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Naaa, why should they? They are not the ones trying to do anything about climate change or the widening wealth-gap.
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You're profoundly stupid.
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Is the Sun causing global warming? [nasa.gov]
One of the “smoking guns” that tells us the Sun is not causing global warming comes from looking at the amount of solar energy that hits the top of the atmosphere. Since 1978, scientists have been tracking this using sensors on satellites, which tell us that there has been no upward trend in the amount of solar energy reaching our planet.
A second smoking gun is that if the Sun were responsible for global warming, we would expect to see warming throughout all lay
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All of this time we've been told to conserve power, go green, etc. Now all of that conservation is just going down the drain of AI, bitcoin farms and data centers. How about THEY start cutting back?
Ok, fine. I mean I don’t want more bitcoin mined. I’m not super excited by most AI products, so I don’t need any of those. On the other hand the people being told to “conserve” are frequently the same people that buy products that involve AWS, or but something they can yell “Alexa what is the weather like!” or “Ok Google when will it snow next”.
Want conserving to work, don’t buy/use the products that require data centers. Then nobody will be
Okay, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
That's all fine and dandy; it's easy to ask for more nuclear developments.
Until they ALSO are expected to make pledges to deal with nuclear waste, and potential nuclear meltdowns, until they do, this should be binned.
As usual, they're looking at their own gains, and not what the rest of society is going to have to deal with after they make their buck. It's just more corporate welfare. If they can't support human welfare, we shouldn't support their corporate welfare.
So fuck that shit, they've done it enough.
Build trend doesn't support the option (Score:5, Informative)
A quick look at OurWorldInData [ourworldindata.org] indicates that total capacity has gone from ~2,540 TWh in 2000 to ~2,700 in the 2020-2023 window (jagged but roughly flat). So, about a 6.3% increase over the last 25 years, globally. Now, in the next 25 years, they want to see a 300% increase, in deployment of systems that take on the order of 6-8 years each, globally (thanks Google). With a little over 400 plants operating (per Google, 2023) globally, that means a net build of ~1200 equivalent plants, not accounting for rebuilds or decomissionings. Then further, all those reactors need the associated transmission capability and grid capacity, wheresoever they may be built.
All of this build needs to involve fairly rare, specialized skill sets and fabrication capabilities, which would need to be expanded to handle the volume (and then, perhaps, be mothballed? Or would the pace continue afterwards?) -- and over 25 years, we're talking about people who are starting *today* being potentially ready for retirement at completion, so entire generations of skilled workforce being involved.
Can it be done? Potentially. Personnel,manufacturing, and materials availability becomes a concern, but those might be worked through. Realistically? Not even close.
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The bigger concern is red tape. Regulation should be in place, but it should not be so time consuming as to delay building by years after the plans and applications are in place.
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Yes, there were delays due to bad engineering and/or execution. But permitting took 4 years. I suppose "timely fashion" is a subjective term.
https://www.nrc.gov/reactors/n... [nrc.gov]
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Agreed. Nuclear plants can be built next to golf courses or country clubs because there are few people there in case something goes wrong. Also, in many cases, both places are near large sources of water which could be used to cool the reactors and generate electricity.
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It's not. Regulation isn't a holdup for nuclear power. Actual construction capabilities are. You can see that in places like China where even without regulations in a country where life is cheap it takes a long time for nuclear to be built. Procuring capability in this industry takes about as long as it does from putting a shovel to the ground to being finished.
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Can it be done? Potentially. Personnel,manufacturing, and materials availability becomes a concern, but those might be worked through. Realistically? Not even close.
Also note that nuclear fuel would become a lot more expensive and may even start to run out in a decade or two (the affordable part, that is) if consumption would be increased by that much. And that is with nuclear already being the most expensive way to generate power by a significant and increasing margin.
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Also note that nuclear fuel would become a lot more expensive and may even start to run out in a decade or two (the affordable part, that is) if consumption would be increased by that much.
How much does the nuclear fuel cost contribute to the cost of electricity produced? As I recall the fuel costs contribute very little, as in the cost of fuel could increase 100X before the cost of electricity doubles. Prove me wrong.
And that is with nuclear already being the most expensive way to generate power by a significant and increasing margin.
Really? Nuclear power is the most expensive way to generate power? Then why would Amazon and Google endorse tripling nuclear power capacity by 2050? Because they want to pay more for electricity? Show me where you get the idea that nuclear power is expensive? If it doesn'
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Triple capacity in the next 25 years? Good luck, even with the $trillions those companies could in theory throw at it.
In the 1970s the USA was able to put one gigawatt of new nuclear power generating capacity on the grid every month on average. 25 years, 12 months in a year, 300 GW. We have about 100 GW of nuclear power capacity in the USA currently so the math checks out. Well, it takes about 7 or 8 years to complete a new nuclear power project so that's 300 GW in 30 to 40 years if we start now and do not exceed the pace set around about 1975, but our economy and construction capacity has increased since then.
Tripling
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Can it be done? Potentially. Personnel,manufacturing, and materials availability becomes a concern, but those might be worked through. Realistically? Not even close.
Well, it's more likely to work at reducing greenhouse gas emissions than just emoting and making political hay, which seems to have been the only other real plan so far.
Something like the effort of Rickover's nuclear Navy program is needed.
Get Mexico to (Score:2)
build a solar wall! :)
Too Expensive (Score:1)
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In 12 years the Barakah nuclear power plant added more the 5.5 GW of electrical generation capacity for $32 billion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
How much are companies like Amazon and Google spending on electricity? Do they expect their electricity consumption to increase in the next decade or two? Maybe the people running these companies aren't thinking 20 years ahead but someone, somewhere, is thinking two decades out on making money. Get enough of such people on the same conference call and that w
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While demand for energy to power Ai grows we are seeing production decrease from closing coal power plants. That creates and opportunity for people to build nuclear power plants to fill that gap.
There is no gap. The free market actually works and wind and solar are replacing fossil fuels just because they are cheaper.
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There is no gap. The free market actually works and wind and solar are replacing fossil fuels just because they are cheaper.
Do you have a source for that?
As I recall there was an article on Slashdot (perhaps you have heard of it) that showed that while wind and solar were increasing in capacity they were not keeping up with growth in demand. The bulk of new demand for power was being met with new natural gas power plants. Perhaps I recall incorrectly. It would be interesting to see me proven wrong.
It would seem curious that Amazon and Google would support tripling nuclear power capacity by 2050 if wind and solar have been pro
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That chart doesn't show renewable energy keeping up with growth in demand, there's no reference to demand at all as it is only a measure of how large of a slice of the pie came from renewable energy sources.
Different needs. (Score:2)
I can understand their claims.
After making some calculations, it seems that most AI datacenters while they eat A LOT of energy, in fact, infrastructure costs (chips) are A LOT HIGHER THAN ENERGY COSTS.
So, they can afford to pay huge energy costs, if that results in advantages like 24x7 generation and in place generation.
Nuclear could suit their needs well.
BUT, that's not excuse to low the guard. As business they will push the most advantage position for them, and nuclear is filled with lots of hidden costs
And build them right next to billionaires' homes (Score:2)
Mimimimi (Score:3)
Amazon, Alphabet's Google, and Meta Platforms will support anything that helps their bottom line. Any resemblance to whatever you happen to think is good is purely coincidental.
Proximity based energy fees (Score:1)
You want nuclear – ok. But consider charging fees based on proximity to the plant. Downwind and “close” free power, far away and upwind – full price, etc. The cost should reflect the risk. Dramatically reduced energy costs would counteract the NIMBY effect.
Unless they have started right now... (Score:2)
I predict Amazon, Google and Meta will have precisely 0% increase in nuclear power by 2050. This stuff takes a long time, anything not actively in flight won't be done by then.
Time passed (Score:1)
Maybe have a look at the Aussie's take on this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]