The logo of Google LLC is shown on a building in San Diego, California, on Oct 9, 2024. WASHINGTON: Alphabet's Google said on Monday it signed the world's first corporate agreement to buy power from multiple small modular reactors to meet electricity demand for artificial intelligence.
"We feel like nuclear can play an important role in helping to meet our demand ... cleanly in a way that's more around the clock," Michael Terrell, senior director for energy and climate at Google, told reporters on a call. US data centre power use is expected to roughly triple between 2023 and 2030 and will require about 47 gigawatts of new generation capacity, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, which assumed natural gas, wind and solar power would fill the gap.
Critics say SMRs will be expensive because they may not be able to achieve the economy of scale of larger plants. In addition, they will likely produce long-lasting nuclear waste for which the country does not yet have a final repository.