WASHINGTON — The explosive growth of artificial intelligence is creating an unexpected new demand for one of America’s oldest sources of electricity: nuclear power plants built decades ago.
Technology companies including Microsoft, Amazon, Meta and Google are increasingly turning to the country’s aging nuclear fleet to secure the enormous quantities of reliable electricity required to operate AI data centers. The strategy is giving struggling nuclear plants a new lease on life while raising concerns about electricity prices, grid reliability and the environmental consequences for consumers.
The push reflects a basic problem facing the technology industry: AI infrastructure is expanding far faster than new power generation can be built.
Big Tech locks up existing nuclear power
Several major technology companies have already signed long-term agreements with nuclear operators.
Meta agreed to purchase electricity for 20 years from a large nuclear reactor in Illinois. Microsoft reached an agreement connected to the restart of a reactor at the Three Mile Island site in Pennsylvania, while Amazon struck a deal involving a 42-year-old nuclear plant along the Susquehanna River.
The agreements are attractive to nuclear operators because technology companies are willing to pay premium prices for dependable, carbon-free electricity. Some contracts can reportedly provide plant operators with rates roughly twice what they could receive on the open market.
For reactors that were once considered financially vulnerable, the sudden demand from AI companies has dramatically changed the economics.
A race for electricity
AI data centers can consume extraordinary amounts of electricity. Unlike traditional office buildings or smaller technology facilities, these massive computing campuses require continuous power around the clock.
That makes nuclear energy particularly attractive.
Nuclear reactors can produce electricity continuously regardless of whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing. For technology companies facing pressure to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear power also provides a way to meet rising electricity demand without directly increasing fossil-fuel generation.
The problem is that the United States has only a limited number of operating reactors, and many are decades old.
Tech companies are focusing heavily on roughly two dozen nuclear plants operating in electricity markets where operators have greater freedom to sell power directly to large customers. Those facilities account for about half of the nation's remaining operating nuclear plants.
Consumers could face unintended consequences
The growing competition for nuclear electricity has alarmed some consumer advocates and regulators.
When electricity from an existing reactor is committed to a private data center, less power may be available to the broader grid. If utilities have to replace that electricity with natural gas or coal, the result could be higher emissions and potentially higher costs for other customers.
Critics argue that technology companies are effectively securing the cleanest and most reliable electricity for themselves while leaving communities to deal with the consequences of expanding power demand.
Regulators in Maryland, for example, have expressed concerns about proposals to locate data centers near the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant and redirect some of its output. A state regulatory report warned that shifting electricity away from the broader grid could affect system reliability because replacing nuclear generation is difficult.
Old reactors get a second chance
The AI boom is also reviving interest in nuclear facilities that once appeared destined for permanent closure.
In Iowa, NextEra Energy has been considering restarting the Duane Arnold Energy Center, which was shut down after a major storm damaged its cooling infrastructure. The plant's economics looked unfavorable when electricity demand was lower, but soaring demand from data centers has changed the calculation.
Technology companies have also expressed interest in the abandoned V.C. Summer nuclear project in South Carolina, where construction was halted after billions of dollars in costs and years of delays.
At operating plants, nuclear companies are pursuing "uprates" — regulatory approvals allowing reactors to generate more electricity than their original designs permitted. Industry officials estimate that such upgrades could add output equivalent to several large new reactors.
The new nuclear dream remains years away
Big Tech says the long-term answer will not be relying indefinitely on aging reactors.
Companies are investing in advanced nuclear technologies, including smaller next-generation reactors, as well as fusion energy. But those technologies remain far less mature than today's conventional nuclear fleet.
Advanced reactors face engineering, supply-chain and regulatory challenges, while commercial fusion power has yet to become a dependable source of electricity.
That leaves technology companies with a difficult choice: wait years for new generation or compete for power from plants that already exist.
For now, the answer is increasingly clear.
America's aging nuclear reactors are becoming critical infrastructure for the AI revolution — even as the country debates whether there is enough electricity to satisfy both Silicon Valley's appetite and the needs of ordinary consumers.
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