Amazon today announced agreements supporting the construction of a next-generation nuclear power plant in its home state of Washington — marking the latest development in the tech-driven resurgence of nuclear energy.
Amazon has a deal with Energy Northwest to fund the initial feasibility phase of a nuclear facility in central Washington, with the right to purchase electricity from the 320 megawatt plant.
The tech giant is also anchoring a newly announced, approximately $500 million investment round in X-energy, which is providing the nuclear reactor technology. That deal will help X-energy scale its manufacturing capabilities to build more than 5 gigawatts of nuclear power in the U.S. by 2039 — a goal the companies deemed “the largest commercial deployment target” of its kind.
“Nuclear is a safe source of carbon-free energy that can help power our operations and meet the growing demands of our customers, while helping us progress toward our Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero carbon across our operations by 2040,” said Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), in a statement.
Amazon is already the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy, investing in electricity production equal to the amount that it consumes.
This year Amazon, Microsoft and Google have all announced plans for purchasing nuclear energy to fuel their data center operations, which are growing rapidly as artificial intelligence increases computational demands. Nuclear is attractive because it doesn’t produce carbon emissions and can operate 24/7, unlike wind and solar power that is available intermittently.
Earlier nuclear deals have relied on power from existing nuclear facilities, but Google and Amazon this week both shared plans for building new small modular reactors, or SMRs. The U.S. doesn’t have any operating SMRs, but the expectation is they’ll be quicker and cheaper to build than traditional reactors.
In addition to the project in Washington, Amazon also signed a deal with Dominion Energy to explore the possibility of building SMRs in Virginia near an existing nuclear facility operated by the utility. Virginia is a U.S. data center hub, and electricity demands in the region are expected to spike 85% over the next 15 years, the companies report.
The interest in SMRs from deep-pocketed and power hungry tech companies have reignited a sector that until recently was racking up financial setbacks.
Just a year ago, X-energy scuttled its $2 billion plan to go public and announced layoffs. In November, NuScale Power of Portland, Ore., nixed a long-planned project in Idaho due to rising costs, while Oklo, which is backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, lost a tentative bid from the military for its microreactors.
Support from the tech sector is focused on meeting demand for their data center operations — but the investments should make additional nuclear projects easier and more affordable by helping clear the hurdle of first-of-a-kind deployments.
The Washington project, for example, begins with four, 80-megawatt reactors whose output are slated for Amazon. But Energy Northwest, a consortium of public utilities in the state, has a preexisting deal with X-energy to potentially build an additional eight reactor modules at the same location in Richland. That electricity will be available to “Amazon and Northwest utilities to power homes and businesses,” according to an Energy Northwest release.
X-energy and Energy Northwest have been collaborating since 2020 on the construction of the nuclear company’s Xe-100 reactors at the Washington location near the Columbia River. Their original announcement of the deal aimed for 2030 to bring the first reactor module online.
“We’ve been working for years to develop this project at the urging of our members, and have found that taking this first, bold step is difficult for utilities, especially those that provide electricity to ratepayers at the cost of production,” said Greg Cullen, Energy Northwest’s vice president for energy services and development, in a statement.
“We applaud Amazon for being willing to use their financial strength, need for power and know-how to lead the way to a reliable, carbon-free power future for the region,” Cullen added.
In the meantime, clean energy sources can’t keep up with data center growth in the U.S. That is resulting in coal power staying online in some places while electricity from natural gas is expected to meet most of the increased demand from data centers.
“Amazon’s announced investment in small modular reactors gives me hope for the future of the
Northwest power grid,” said Rick Dunn, general manager of Washington’s Benton Public Utility District.
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