With the advent of artificial intelligence, technology companies have a whole new appetite for power. The ultra-energy-intensive data crunching required to animate the latest AI tools has sent industry leaders scrambling to secure reliable and plentiful power; and their most recent moves should teach us something about energy policy.
Big Tech’s Big Moves
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced they’d signed a contract with Constellation Energy to revamp and restart the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island, specifically for the purpose of powering the tech giant’s data centers.
Contemporaneously, Google has announced it has signed “the world’s first corporate agreement to purchase nuclear energy from multiple small modular reactors (SMR) to be developed by Kairos Power.” They plan to bring the first SMR online by 2030, and more thereafter.
A day after the Google news, Amazon announced they, too, signed multiple “agreements for innovative nuclear energy projects to address growing energy demands.” Not to be outdone, Amazon’s move is to actually invest directly in an advanced nuclear company, via SMR company X-energy, funding the completion of its reactor design and licensing, as well as the first phase of its TRISO fuel fabrication facility in Tennessee.
The company set a goal of deploying 5 gigawatts of new power projects with X-energy SMRs across the United States by 2039.
All three of the companies have identified sustainability and lowering carbon footprints as partial motives for the pivot to nuclear. It’s a politically correct pleasantry; all but the most naive understand the primary motive for these companies is clearly to secure a robust 24/7 dedicated power source that can handle the energy demands of new technologies without overburdening existing generation sources.
What better than advanced nuclear? It seems like a no-brainer. In fact, it raises a cynical question: Why has it taken so long for corporate America to move into real solution seeking, instead of the virtue-signaling “green initiatives” that have become all too familiar? AI has simply made it a necessity for their bottom line — that’s why. North Carolina’s decision makers, both public and private, should take note.
Fission for me, but not for thee?
If there’s anything to confidently assert about the country and time we’re living in, it’s that we Americans have reached the bottom line.
A “fission for me, but not for thee” dichotomy is simply untenable.
The rising cost of living, fomented by misguided policy and fiscal profligacy, has so eaten away at disposable income that the average family is making financial tradeoffs they’ve never had to consider before. The cost of energy is a huge and immovable part of that. Whether it be the heating bill, the price of gas, or the energy cost premium priced into every product from hair-ties to housing, the bottom line is families across North Carolina deserve the same haste for real energy solutions as Big Tech visionaries.
Yet, for years, elected leaders and bureaucrats — even here in North Carolina — have forced the masses into a vulnerable and expensive tilt toward “green energy” sources, such as solar panels and wind mills, in the name of climate change hysteria.
Wanting reliable, affordable power above all else, or questioning the hysterical narrative, was deemed selfish, maybe even sadistic, but definitely racist.
All the while, standard nuclear fission offered nearly infinite, emission free energy. It had its own hysteria to deal with, of course. But it is the suffocating bureaucracy, adding exponential expense to approving and constructing nuclear power plants, that snuffed out our nuclear development over past decades.
North Carolinians were lucky to develop the nuclear power assets we did, when such things were still being built, providing nearly a third of our electricity generation. Duke Energy, our state’s utility monopoly, could push toward the deployment of even more traditional nuclear assets to meet Carbon Plan targets, but they only get a “reasonable profit” from such things.
According to one insider, “they front load a lot of solar that won’t work, while SMRs are researched, and then the ratepayers will fund the deployment of them, but only after power bills triple and the state economy is damaged.”
Emergency declaration
But, like I said, Americans have reached their bottom line.
In anticipation of and in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, state government officials made an emergency declaration to suspend rules and regulations that might hinder mitigation and recovery efforts. This is a common practice during natural disasters or human-caused boondoggles — lifting DOT regulations on farmers moving harvests before a storm, or suspending fuel regulations during a pipeline supply disruption — showing in clear relief how arbitrary so many of these regulations are in the first place.
Perhaps North Carolinians should declare an emergency in energy policy and regulation? Something that focuses attention on real, timely solutions with a sensible goal in mind — affordable, reliable energy for North Carolina families and businesses (as compared to the nonsensical goal of net zero).
With the advancement of nuclear technologies, evidenced by the SMRs Big Tech is rapidly investing in, there should be a laser-like focus in North Carolina to cut through and remove as much red tape as possible to facilitate its deployment. A special commission, with rule-suspending authority, should be formed to spur our municipalities into the kind of cutting-edge energy partnerships Big Tech is now leaning in to. If it’s good enough for Amazon, why not a town of 30,000?
From the washed-out hollers of western North Carolina, to the big population centers, to the coast: the only real impediments to equipping our communities with reliable, affordable, resilient energy — sooner, rather than later — are the kind that free men and women shouldn’t have to tolerate.
This post was originally published on here
