“The anti-nuclear movement came out of California; the environmental movement came out of California,” said Nelson of the Radiant Energy Group. “For California to decide to keep nuclear power is therefore a clarion call to the world.”
For what seems to be the first time in decades, nuclear energy is having a moment.
Recent headlines announcing plans to restart old power plants, along with anticipation of the development of nuclear facilities with more compact designs, plus expected increases in energy demand spurred largely by data centers to meet anticipated growth of artificial intelligence networks have given the nuclear industry and its advocates a boost.
And in what may be a long shot, some proponents even think nuclear can make a comeback in California, where opponents have long been entrenched.
“In general, nuclear advocates are euphoric,” said Mark Nelson, managing director at the Radiant Energy Group, a clean power consultancy that avidly supports nuclear power. “It’s an enormous amount of energy in a tiny amount of space, requiring almost no mining or extraction of the earth’s resources without emitting carbon, 24/7 and can last a hundred years or more at a single power plant.”
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But the industry still has fierce critics who say any claims of a nuclear renaissance are overblown.
“We would call it a relapse” rather than a revival, said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, a nonprofit opposed to nuclear power that is based in Maryland. “There have been other nuclear so-called boom cycles, so we’re very skeptical of the propaganda.”
Signs of new life
Perhaps the most dramatic example of a potential comeback came last month when Microsoft announced plans to restart a portion of Three Mile Island — the site of the 1979 accident that delivered a near-fatal blow to the industry.
Microsoft unveiled a $1.6 billion power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to bring back the Unit 1 reactor in 2028 as a dedicated source of emissions-free electricity to feed a fleet of Microsoft data centers.
Like many tech companies, Microsoft is making a huge bet on artificial intelligence.
Generative AI processes gigabytes of data, scans billions of words and uses models that adaptively learn over time, which requires huge amounts of electricity from data centers.
Just 10 days after the Three Mile Island announcement, the U.S. Department of Energy finalized a $1.5 billion low-interest loan guarantee to help reopen the Holtec Palisades nuclear power plant in Michigan.
The energy department expects electricity demand to grew 15 percent in the next few years, driven by growth in data centers for AI, more electric vehicles on the road and an increasing reliance on continuous power such as nuclear that can complement variable energy sources such as wind and solar.
On top of that, 14 of the world’s top financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, announced last month they would lend money to help triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050.
“It is essential that we accelerate the progression of planned projects into plants on the ground given the huge demand coming down the line for data centers and AI technologies,” James Schaefer of Guggenheim Securities said in a statement.
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Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
