Amazon goes nuclear . . . !

Amazon has announced a signed agreement with Dominion Energy in Virginia to explore the development and construction of one or more small modular nuclear reactors to use to provide clean power to Amazon Web Services data centers. It is anticipated that Dominion will contract with X-energy to host X-energy's new high-temperature gas reactor at Dominion’s North Anna nuclear power station. This is intended to increase access to clean power for AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary, which has escalating energy needs as it expands its services into generative AI. The agreement is also a part of Amazon’s path to net-zero carbon emissions.

Amazon Web Services has agreed to invest more than $500 million into advanced nuclear power, through three related projects, that will result in as much as 600 MW of new power generation at locations from Virginia to Washington state. In the process, Amazon is partnering with Dominion Energy, Energy Northwest and X-Energy to explore the development of an X-energy small modular nuclear reactor, or SMR, near Dominion’s existing North Anna nuclear power station.

Amazon, together with Energy Northwest, a consortium of 29 public utility districts and municipalities across Washington, will help fund the deployment of four reactors developed by X-energy totalling approximately 320 MW of new electricity generation. Additionally, Amazon also is making an equity investment into X-energy as part of an approximately $500 million fundraising round announced today by the nuclear technology company and they've signed a separate memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Dominion Energy “to explore innovative new development structures that would help advance potential [SMR] nuclear development in Virginia.”

[Read more at the sources listed below.]

Sources

UtilityDive: Amazon announces small modular reactor deals with Dominion, X-energy, Energy Northwest, by Brian Martucci, Oct. 16, 2024

CNBC: Amazon goes nuclear, to invest more than $500 million to develop small modular reactors, by Diana Olick, Oct. 16, 2024.

PR Newswire: Dominion Energy and Amazon to explore advancement of Small Modular Reactor (SMR) nuclear development in Virginia, Oct. 16, 2024.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Customers, Corporate decarbonization, Energy transition, LINKS, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Public companies

March 24, 2024

Tech companies collaborating to accelerate advanced nuclear

Google has partnered with Microsoft and Nucor to accelerate advanced clean electricity technologies through a new "demand aggregation model" to help bring "first-of-its-kind" commercial projects to market.

Technology companies compete with each other in a lot of ways but they all want to achieve the goal of being able to run operations and data centers using 24/7 carbon-free energy. They've done about as much as they can trying to buy, build and/or get credits from wind and solar plants and it hasn't been sufficient. With its announcement, Google acknowledges that they "need a broader portfolio of advanced clean electricity technologies" to be able to fully decarbonize their energy consumption.

The announcement lists the following as "advanced clean electricity technologies": next-generation geothermal, advanced nuclear, clean hydrogen and long-duration energy storage. This is an astounding announcement because it makes it clear that the tech companies are now moving their focus away from wind and solar, which are just too inconsistent and unreliable, to better, more reliable options.

The initiative aims to aggregate their demand for better types of clean energy to increase their buying power, their lobby power (we have to believe) and diversify the risks of investing in first-of-a-kind (FOAK) plants, whose costs are always higher than "Nth" of a kind plants. They recognize that there are a bevy of developers looking to build next-generation nuclear (and probably also geothermal) plants and they want to be able to help these ventures build those FOAK units, without each individually and solely having to take on risk. This is a tremendously important initiative and concept, it will definitely help accelerate the timelines for companies seeking to get plants built.

THe announcement comes just a few weeks after Amazon announced their purchase of Talen's nuclear-power Cumulous Data Center, which will enable Amazon Web Services to achieve their very ambitious decarbonization goal by 2025. But there aren't many nuclear power plants with spare generating capacity. In order to get access to sufficient quantities of 24/7 clean nuclear power, the U.S. will need to start building next-generation plants, many of which will be Gen IV designs.

Read more at Google's The Keyword: "A new initiative with Microsoft and Nucor to accelerate advanced clean electricity technologies," by Maud Texler, Global Director, Clean Energy and Decarbonization Development March 19, 2024.

Also see the IEA Report, Net Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Global Energy Sector, cited by Google for its support of the need for advanced energy technologies, revised October 2021.

Published by Nucleation Capital in 100% Renewables, Advanced Nuclear, Advanced Nuclear Customers, Carbon emissions, Corporate decarbonization, Corporate purpose, Future of Energy, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear financing, Nuclear innovation, Private companies, Public companies, Solving climate, US competitiveness, US technological leadership, Zero emission energy

March 7, 2024

Amazon buys Nuclear-Powered Data Center

Amazon has leapt out ahead of other large tech companies in meeting its 2025 carbon reduction goals by buying Talen's existing nuclear-powered data center, adjacent to and powered by Talen's Susquehanna Nuclear Power Plant. This, however, is part of a trend in which tech companies are going nuclear . . . in order to obtain 24x7 clean energy.

According to Nuclear Newswire, Talen Energy announced the sale of Cumulus Data Assets, its 960-megawatt data center campus to cloud service provider Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon, for $650 million. Cumulus sits on a 1,200-acre campus in Pennsylvania and is directly powered by the adjacent Susquehanna Steam Electric Station, which generates 2.5 gigawatts of power.

“We believe this is a transformative transaction with long term benefits,” said Mark “Mac” McFarland, Talen president and chief executive officer of Talen, on a Monday call with investors and media. As power demand continues to rise worldwide, “data centers are at the heart of that growth,” he added.

“Several years ago, Amazon set an ambitious goal to reach net-zero carbon by 2040—ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement. As part of that goal, we’re on a path to power our operations with 100 percent renewable energy by 2025—five years ahead of our original 2030 target,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “To supplement our wind and solar energy projects, which depend on weather conditions to generate energy, we’re also exploring new innovations and technologies and investing in other sources of clean, carbon-free energy. This agreement with Talen Energy for carbon-free energy is one project in that effort.”

The Susquehanna nuclear power plant is the sixth largest nuclear power plant in the United States and produces 63 million kilowatt hours per day. Its two General Electric boiling water reactors have been on line since 1983 and are licensed to operate through 2042 and 2044, respectively. Talen, its majority owner, is a Houston, Texas-based company, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in May 2022 as part of a financial restructuring. The company exited bankruptcy in 2023, and officials have said that this recent transaction with AWS is a boost to its cash flow. After paying off debts, interest and other costs, Talen expects net proceeds of $361 million from the deal with Amazon.

Read more at Nuclear Newswire "Amazon buys nuclear-powered data center from Talen," March 7, 2024.

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear Customers, Brilliant thinkers, Carbon emissions, Corporate decarbonization, Energy abundance, Future of Energy, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Private companies, Public companies, Solving climate, Zero emission energy

October 19, 2021

Amazon, Ikea and others commit to zero-emission shipping by 2040

An initiative organized by the Aspen Institute helped Amazon, Ikea, Unilever, Michelin and Patagoniz to pledge that they won't use shipping companies which allow emissions by 2040. Shipping the world's products around produce about 3 percent of human emissions each year, an amount similar to what Germany's annual emissions are, as the sixth largest emitter in the world.

In signing the pledge, the companies hoped to signal their determination to decarbonize this part of their supply chains and inspire "a surge in investment by ocean freight carriers and producers of zero-carbon shipping fuels," their announcement read. They also urged government officials to "to set ambitious marine fuel goals, implement regulations and market-based measures to encourage the rapid development of new fuels and technology, and to allow zero-carbon shipping fuels to “become competitive with fossil fuels as soon as possible.”

Read more in The Washington Post, Amazon, Ikea and other big companies commit to zero-emission shipping by 2040, by Hamza Shaban, published October 19, 2021

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Corporate purpose, Future of Energy, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Nuclear maritime propulsion, Private companies, Solving climate

July 9, 2020

Oil and gas investments reach their “sell by” date

Ray Rothrock, famed Venrock VC who has made multiple investments in advanced nuclear, together with Ellen Hughes-Cromwick and Farah Benahmed, discuss the critical role that professional venture capital (VC) has long played in accelerating innovation. While the nature of VC has changed over time, the goal of providing precious capital to great entrepreneurs with world-changing ideas for solutions against big problems, remains the same. But now, rather than a handful of rich families, there are over 1,000 VC firms deploying about $100 billion a year to ventures of all kinds.

The record of success by VC is borne out by research which shows that 43% of today’s public companies were venture-backed, representing 57% of the public market capitalization, 38% of all employees at public companies and 82% of all the corporate R&D.

As fossil fuels fail and investors look ahead to the next phase of energy, many investors and VCs are once again looking to innovators and understanding both the threats and risks but also the opportunities that will come with a clean energy transition. While encouraging, we need to accelerate the pace by which clean energy innovators get capital and figure out the ways to unleash a wave of capital toward clean energy.

Read more in Third Way: "Innovation Sparks Advances Toward a Clean Energy Future"

Published by Nucleation Capital in Advanced Nuclear, Asset manager support, Brilliant thinkers, Capital reallocation, Fossil fuels, LINKS, Nuclear competitiveness, Venture capital support for nuclear