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Meta's Going To Revive an Old Nuclear Power Plant (theverge.com) 46

Meta has struck a 20-year deal with energy company Constellation to keep the Clinton Clean Energy Center nuclear plant in Illinois operational, the social media giant's first nuclear power purchase agreement as it seeks clean energy sources for AI data centers. The aging facility, which was slated to close in 2017 after years of financial losses and currently operates under a state tax credit reprieve until 2027, will receive undisclosed financial support that enables a 30-megawatt capacity expansion to 1,121 MW total output.

The arrangement preserves 1,100 local jobs while generating electricity for 800,000 homes, as Meta purchases clean energy certificates to offset a portion of its growing carbon footprint driven by AI operations.

Meta's Going To Revive an Old Nuclear Power Plant

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  • There used to be a nuclear power plant in Brazil that at one time locals called The Firefly due to its operating history. Clinton Nuclear Plant is the US' closest equivalent to that. ComEd, which has a long and large if not always 100% successful of running nuclear plants, spent years resisting all pressure from the ICC and state government to take it over from its original owner and then when their new corporate parent forced the issue spent years and many careers trying to make it work.

    • Also FUD. I live near this plant and have known many employees from there. It has always operated pretty close to on-schedule. There was about a 2 year outage for upgrades sometime in the mid-2010's I think. ComEd bought it because it was profitable. The fight has primarily been with the State government over their tax status. Illinois gave huge incentives to "low-emission" power generation, but always refused to classify nuclear as low emission. Total nonsense.

  • What could possibly go wrong?

    I'm just glad we are currently in the process of gutting all those unnecessary and useless regulations and firing all those bureaucrats and replacing them with people who take loyalty tests for a specific ideology.

    Because nothing bad has ever happened when countries do that.
    • rsilvergun is certified 'Sharp as a Tack' i hear

    • And it's a loss making plant propped up by state taxes. We keep getting told nuclear is baseload and always profitable. Seems it's only reliable when it's owners are making profits. Hopefully taxpayers money will stop being used for this plant.
  • Oh shit, I remember this from Shadowrun lore.
  • Stories like this should put an end to the claims that nuclear power is not profitable. It should, but I doubt it will.

    I expect that large corporations like Meta, Google, and Microsoft have some experienced and intelligent lawyers, accountants, public relations, lobbyists, and so forth to figure out the best options for powering their data centers in the future. A claim I see repeated often is that nuclear power is unnecessary because wind, sun, and batteries can be deployed more quickly, at lower cost, w

    • Stories like this should put an end to the claims that nuclear power is not profitable

      Nuclear power has been very profitable. All it needs is a boatload of government subsidies and ratepayers who have no alternatives but to pay whatever it takes to make it profitable.

  • by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Tuesday June 03, 2025 @09:26PM (#65426023)

    I'm glad that they're using power from a source that results in hugely decreased greenhouse gas emissions.

    On the other hand, do we really want to be wasting green power on AI which, so far, has a better record of killing jobs and stealing IP than it has of making humans happier, safer, and better off?

    I get that AI can be used to produce medical and scientific innovations. But everyone here knows that the vast majority of its resources will be devoted to less honourable endeavours. Making some human jobs obsolete, while simultaneously creating deep-fake propaganda which makes the proles less likely to revolt over their worsening lot in life, is one misuse that springs to mind.

    Meta is a cancer in the body of society. Nuclear powered Meta-stasis - I guess that's fitting, in a warped kind of way...

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