Amazon goes nuclear in WA as demand for data threatens power grid

Amazon announced Wednesday that it signed three new deals to help develop nuclear energy projects, including four new commercial reactors in Central Washington that are expected to come online by the early 2030s.

"As a member of Washington's business community, Amazon is committed to investing in new nuclear energy technologies that can help power our operations and provide net-new, safe sources of carbon-free energy to the grid," said Kevin Miller, Amazon's vice president of Global Data Centers, in a news release announcing the project.

Amazon’s principal partner on the project is Energy Northwest, a collection of 28 utility districts that includes Seattle City Light, Tacoma Public Utilities and Snohomish County PUD. Energy Northwest currently operates ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​the Columbia Generating Station, "the Northwest's only commercial nuclear energy facility." The agreement calls for Amazon to fund "the initial feasibility phase of an SMR project, which is planned to be sited near Energy Northwest's Columbia Generating Station nuclear energy facility in Richland, Washington."

SMR stands for small modular reactor, which is touted as an affordable and flexible alternative to a conventional-sized reactor. 

x-energy-smr-model

An X-energy SMR model.

The SMR envisioned for the Richland site is being developed by another Amazon financial partner, X-Energy – a private engineering firm based out of Rockville, Maryland. 

In a separate news release, X-Energy said Amazon is anchoring a $500 million financing round, as the two companies work to "bring more than 5 gigawatts of new power projects online across the United States by 2039, representing the largest commercial deployment target of SMRs to date."

Amazon's own ‘sustainability’ announcement featured a full paragraph of praise for SMRs from Washington Gov. Jay Inslee. 

"Small modular reactors and fusion energy can play critical roles in providing consumers and businesses reliable zero-emission energy … It’s why we dedicated $25 million from Washington’s Climate Commitment Act for Energy Northwest and I congratulate them on being a part of [Amazon Web Services’] efforts to build clean power sources that help cover their growing energy needs," Inslee said.

 Lawmakers and utility companies see a power supply crisis coming to Washington state in the next five years, as energy needs of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google have burgeoned far faster than previously anticipated. 

x-energy control room

Workers look at data in the X-Energy control room.  (Amazon)

In a July report, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council predicted data center power demand in the Pacific Northwest will hit 4000 megawatts by 2029, nearly three times its original projection of 1400 megawatts by 2030, as consumers and businesses clamor for more generative AI products like ChatGPT.

Washington state lawmakers have backed adding SMRs to the grid to meet the state’s overall climate goals, while other big tech companies have also chosen nuclear as the best climate-friendly option to meet their power needs. 

Google is backing the construction of seven SMRs in the U.S., and last month Microsoft entered into an agreement with Constellation Energy to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island, the site of the country’s worst nuclear power accident

Yet the imbalance between our energy supply and future demand has not been enough to convince central Washington stakeholders around the site of the proposed SMR deployment to support the project. 

Columbia Riverkeeper and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are fighting the proposal as a threat to the environment. 

"The nuclear power industry would like you to believe that Small Modular Nuclear Reactors (SMNRs) are a magic bullet to solve the climate crisis. Our opinion: SMNRs are a false solution that diverts funding from proven renewable energy technologies that are safer, less expensive, and faster to deploy," Columbia Riverkeeper said on its website.

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