Facebook parent company wants reactors available starting in 2030s
Facebook parent company Meta wants to find developers that can provide nuclear reactors to support electricity demand from the tech company’s data centres and artificial intelligence (AI) business.
Meta announced a request for proposals (RFP) “to identify nuclear energy developers to help us meet our AI innovation and sustainability objectives – targeting 1 [to] 4 gigawatts (GW) of new nuclear generation capacity in the US”.
The California-based company, which owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, among other products and services, said the new generation capacity could also support local power grids.
Meta wants to have nuclear power available for its use starting in the early 2030s. It said: “We are taking an open approach with this RFP so we can partner with others across the industry to bring new nuclear energy to the grid.”
Meta said in the RFP Meta in its RFP: “We are seeking developers with strong community engagement, development, and permitting, and execution expertise that have development opportunities for new nuclear energy resources – either small modular reactors (SMR) or larger nuclear reactors.”
The company said supporting the development of clean energy must continue to be a priority as electric grids expand to accommodate growing energy needs.
“At Meta, we believe nuclear energy will play a pivotal role in the transition to a cleaner, more reliable, and diversified electric grid,” it said, adding: “Our aim is to add 1-4 GW of new nuclear generation capacity in the US to be delivered starting in the early 2030s.
“We are looking to identify developers that can help accelerate the availability of new nuclear generators and create sufficient scale to achieve material cost reductions by deploying multiple units, both to provide for Meta’s future energy needs and to advance broader industry decarbonization.”
Entergy, a major southeastern US utility, recently announced plans to build a 1,500-MW natural gas-fired power plant in Louisiana to support a Meta data centre there.
Background: Big Tech’s Big Nuclear Push
Several major technology companies, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft and are looking at nuclear power to power their energy-intensive data centres and AI initiatives.
A $334m (€316m) agreement between Amazon and public power company Energy Northwest will fund efforts for the development and deployment of up to 12 SMRs at the Columbia nuclear power station in Richland, Washington state.
Amazon has also previously signed an agreement to co-locate a data centre facility next to Talen Energy’s Susquehanna nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, which will directly power its data centres and help keep the two-unit Susquehanna station in commercial operation.
Amazon’s agreements follow Google’s announcement in October that it will back the construction of seven small SMRs from Kairos Power.
Google and Kairos said that under the terms of the deal, the first of its kind, Google committed to buying power generated by seven reactors to be built by Kairos Power, a seven-year-old California-based startup.
In September, Microsoft announced that it would commit to buying 20 years’ supply of electricity from the mothballed US nuclear power plant Three Mile Island if Constellation Energy restarted the site.
US computer technology company Oracle wants to power a new data centre through nuclear energy, according to the firm’s chief technology officer Larry Ellison.
