Amazon to invest more than $500 million to develop nuclear energy
Amazon has joined the ranks of big tech firms going nuclear to meet surging energy demands.
The e-commerce giant is making a substantial commitment to nuclear power, including next-generation reactors. It has signed three new agreements totaling more than $500 million to support the development of nuclear energy projects.
Amazon said nuclear energy is a safe source of carbon-free energy that can help it make progress toward the company’s Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero carbon across all operations by 2040. It can also help the company meet the high energy demands from data centers and emerging technologies such as generative AI. Google and Microsoft have announced similar plans.
"One of the fastest ways to address climate change is by transitioning our society to carbon-free energy sources, and nuclear energy is both carbon-free and able to scale — which is why it’s an important area of investment for Amazon," said Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), in a corporate blog post. "Our agreements will encourage the construction of new nuclear technologies that will generate energy for decades to come."
Two of Amazon's new agreements include enabling the construction of several new small modular reactors (SMRs), a next-generation nuclear reactor with a smaller physical footprint allowing them to be built closer to the grid. According to Amazon, SMRs also have faster build times than traditional reactors, allowing them to come online sooner.
Following are summaries of each new Amazon nuclear energy agreement:
Energy Northwest/ X-energy
In its home state of Washington, Amazon is entering a partnership with Energy Northwest, a consortium of state public utilities, to enable the development of four advanced SMRs. The reactors will be constructed, owned and operated by Energy Northwest and are expected to generate roughly 320 megawatts (MW) of capacity for the first phase of the project, with the option to increase to 960 MW total — enough to power the equivalent of more than 770,000 U.S. homes.
These projects are designed to help meet the forecasted energy needs of the Pacific Northwest beginning in the early 2030s.
In Washington, Amazon is also making an investment in X-energy, a developer of next-generation SMR reactors and fuel. X-energy’s nuclear reactor design will be used in the Energy Northwest project. The investment includes manufacturing capacity to develop the SMR equipment to support more than five gigawatts of new nuclear energy projects utilizing X-energy’s technology.
Dominion Energy
In Virginia, location of Amazon’s second headquarters (HQ2) project in Arlington, the company has signed an agreement with utility company Dominion Energy to explore the development of an SMR project near Dominion’s existing North Anna nuclear power station.
This is expected to bring at least 300 megawatts of power to the Virginia region, where Dominion projects that power demands will increase by 85% over the next 15 years.
[READ MORE: Amazon Web Services to invest $35 billion in new Va. data centers]
Talen Energy
Amazon also previously signed an agreement to co-locate a data center facility next to the Talen Energy nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, which will directly power its data centers with carbon-free energy and help preserve an existing reactor.
According to Amazon and Energy Northwest, their agreement is expected to support up to 1,000 temporary construction jobs and as many as 100-plus permanent jobs once the SMR project is fully operational.
In Pennsylvania, Amazon says the project to build a data center campus as part of its investment in Talen Energy, will create construction jobs and bring upgrades to local utility infrastructure. According to Talen Energy, the partnership will also help preserve the 900 local jobs that are already there to keep the facility up and running.
