ANNAPOLIS, Md. – The fight against climate change and huge demands for more electricity, much of it from data center growth to support artificial intelligence, are fueling renewed interest in nuclear power in several Chesapeake Bay drainage states.
The rekindled appetite for nuclear power comes after decades of disinterest and opposition to expanding the power source in the country.
The possible resurrection in the region is aided by a federal push for more nuclear power to reduce the country’s carbon footprint. Also, tech giants want a lot more electricity fast, and they want it to be carbon neutral.
Though already investing in renewable energy such as wind and solar, several of the world’s largest tech conglomerates have in recent months announced billions of dollars in investments to pursue nuclear in the region.
Among the flurry of announcements in 2024:
• Constellation Energy will spend $1.6 billion with a federal loan guarantee to restart the Unit 1 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. The Microsoft Corporation will pay for the electricity generated there for 20 years, at well above the market rate, to offset its energy use by providing carbon-neutral power to the regional grid. Unit 1, which survived the infamous partial meltdown in 1979, restarted in 1985 but closed in 2019 because it wasn’t profitable.
• Amazon and Talen Energy have signed a deal in which Talen’s nuclear plant on the Susquehanna River downstream of Wilkes-Barre, PA, would divert power from the regional power grid to a new data center that Amazon plans to build on the grounds of the plant. On Nov. 1, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission rejected the agreement, raising concerns that transferring the energy to Amazon might reduce the stability of the grid. The companies are appealing that decision.
• Amazon and Dominion Energy will jointly explore the building of small “modular” reactors near Virginia’s North Anna nuclear power station. No modular reactors, so-called because they can be built in a factory and shipped to a site, are online yet in the U.S.
• Amazon will anchor a $500 million fundraising project for Maryland-based nuclear developer X-Energy to develop small modular nuclear reactors. No potential sites have been announced.
• Google has hired Kairos Power to build and operate as many as seven advanced nuclear reactors by 2035. Google said they will be built in “relevant service territories to supply clean electricity to Google data centers.” Northern Virginia has the largest data center cluster in the world, including those operated by Google.
• West Virginia legislators have dismantled a moratorium that prohibited any more nuclear plants from being built in the state.
• A new study by the U.S. Department of Energy touts the potential of building new nuclear facilities at existing or recently retired nuclear plant sites. Without naming them, the report lists four locations in Pennsylvania, two in Virginia, one in Maryland and three in New York. The study also mentioned 18 unnamed coal power plants — some closed, some still operating — that could accommodate new nuclear reactors. Four of those are in Pennsylvania, three in Maryland, one in Virginia, eight in West Virginia and two in New York.
Currently, nuclear energy provides 19% of the country’s electricity. But following nuclear accidents at Three Mile Island’s Unit 2 in 1979, Chernobyl in Russia in 1986 and Fukushima in Japan in 2011, no new commercial plants were built in the U.S. through 2023. During that time, more than two dozen nuclear reactors closed down.
Georgia Power’s two new large reactor units went online in 2023 and 2024, and cost nearly $35 billion and took 15 years to build — more than twice the projected price tag and seven years late. Modular reactors could presumably be built faster and for less money.
Some environmental groups have shifted from adamant opposition of nuclear power to uneasy endorsement.
“We are in a climate emergency,” said John Quigley, a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “Clean energy needs to scale fast enough to not only replace current carbon-emitting generation sources by 2050 at the latest, but also meet the growing demand for energy from electrification.”
He said that humans are running out of time to limit the damage from global warming. “We have to seriously look at deploying every zero-carbon resource that we can now, especially large sources like nuclear. We have to avoid a climate policy situation where the perfect is the enemy of the good.”
But many see the expansion of nuclear energy as folly.
Three Mile Island Alert, a citizens group formed after the 1979 accident, decries “resuscitating zombie nukes.” On balance, nuclear power is far from green, said Eric Epstein, chairman of that group. Nuclear plants make daily withdrawals from waterways, he said, and discharge heated water that can kill fish. Their intakes can also kill small fish and aquatic insects.
“The Susquehanna River Basin is a vital resource and a cultural jewel,” Epstein said. “We should not allow high-tech pirates to take our energy and water to feed artificial intelligence.”
Other groups have not wavered in their long-standing opposition, either.
“Nuclear power has no place in a safe, sustainable future. Nuclear energy is both expensive and dangerous,” reads a statement from Greenpeace USA. “New nuclear plants are more expensive and take longer to build than renewable energy sources like wind and solar.”
Regardless of where sentiment coalesces with the public and government, there are many nonpolitical questions in considering a return to widespread nuclear power.
Costs are huge, and steps for permitting and safety measures are ponderous.
Even with backing from tech industries, a significant shift to nuclear power won’t happen without heavy subsidies from the federal government.
The Biden administration embraced nuclear energy and has been offering significant financial incentives, as well as underwriting test facilities. On Nov. 12, the administration announced a plan to triple nuclear power capacity by 2050 by constructing new reactors, restarting plants and upgrading existing facilities.
Will the Trump administration continue the largesse? During the 2024 campaign, the president-elect said he would be approving new reactors.
However, Trump’s support for nuclear power may be complicated. He has also vowed to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains the federal subsidies and incentives for such work.