Google To Fund Development of Three Nuclear Power Sites
- Reference: 0177372303
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/05/07/1948212/google-to-fund-development-of-three-nuclear-power-sites
- Source link:
> The two companies will work "with utility and regulated power partners to identify and advance new projects" and Elementl "will continue the evaluation of potential technology, engineering, procurement and construction, and other project partners, while prioritising specific sites for accelerated development."
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> Elementl Power, founded in 2022, describes itself as a technology-agnostic advanced nuclear project developer which aims to provide "turn-key development, financing and ownership solutions for customers that want access to clean baseload power but may not want to own or operate nuclear power assets." It says its mission is to "to deploy over 10 gigawatts of next-generation nuclear power in the US by 2035."
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> It is not Google's first nuclear power deal -- [3]in October 2024 the company signed an agreement with Kairos Power to purchase power from its fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature small modular reactors, with a fleet of up to 500 MW of capacity by 2035. The aim of the power purchase agreement was to facilitate Kairos Power to develop, construct, and operate plants and sell energy, ancillary services, and environmental attributes to Google. At the time of that announcement Google said that it would help it achieve net-zero emissions across all of its operations and value chain by 2030.
Further reading: [4]Google tries to greenwash massive AI energy consumption with another vague nuclear deal (The Register)
[1] https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/elementl-power-and-google-sign-strategic-agreement-to-develop-locations-for-advanced-nuclear-projects-302447957.html
[2] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-to-fund-elementl-to-prepare-three-nuclear-power-sites
[3] https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/24/10/14/2022231/google-inks-deal-with-nuclear-company-as-data-center-power-demand-surges
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/07/google_signs_another_nuclear_deal/
Re: Clean, reliable power (Score:2)
Um, you are being sarcastic, right? Literally megatons of mining has to occur to obtain radioactives, unless they plan on using plutonium from decommissioned weapons.
Re: (Score:2)
> Um, you are being sarcastic, right? Literally megatons of mining has to occur to obtain radioactives, unless they plan on using plutonium from decommissioned weapons.
I'm pretty sure you're off by orders of magnitude there. It takes only about 27 metric tons of uranium for a gigawatt of continuous power production for a year. If you don't include any material that you have to remove to dig a tunnel down to reach the veins of uranium, that's likely to involve moving only single-digit thousand tons of ore per gigawatt-year, not megatons. At just 600 megawatts each, even if you had *fifteen* plants of that size, you'd still likely *barely* hit *one* megaton of total ore
Re: Clean, reliable power (Score:2)
Of course I'm including all the material that must be removed to get to the ore. Duh.
Re: (Score:2)
Looks like you need to mine around 500 tons of ore to get 1 ton of uranium so 13,500 tons for a year. I guess there would also be some dirt, but that wouldn't be removed entirely. We're certainly no where near coal which needs something like 3m tons of coal per year
Re: (Score:2)
I think they're referring to how inefficient uranium mining is.
The mass of displaced material per mass of uranium is somewhere between 1000:1 and 20000:1 depending on the deposit. It's not great.
So for your 27t, you're looking at between 27kt and 540kt of material.
Re: (Score:2)
Which materials and how much of them?
You know what a ton of anything requires? Materials.
Looks like scamming Google ie easy... (Score:2)
Just sell the right fictional fantasy-tech to them...
Re:You should be in Australia... (Score:4, Funny)
There was a whole series of feature-length documentaries about what happened when Australia went nuclear. Didn't you see any of them? "Mad Max", "Beyond Thunderdome", "Fury Road", "Furiosa"....
Re: (Score:2)
That'll keep them from being the 52 American state.
Re: (Score:2)
Chernobyl DID happen. HTH. HAND. OKBYE.
Re: (Score:2)
What happened at Chernobyl was unique to the reactors there, where a failure in the control system accelerated the reaction inside the core. It literally can't happen with the design used everywhere else, where the failure of the control system shuts down the reaction in the core. Three Mile Island was about as bad as it gets for most reactor designs, and there were . . . zero deaths that can be attributed to it. Even if you add in earthquakes and tsunamis, literally the worst nuclear power plant incident o
Re: (Score:2)
You're wrong about your claims. Chernobyl has had strong environmental effects for decades, you should maybe do your own research.
The argument that modern reactors are safe because they are designed differently from previous reactor designs is not convincing. By that logic, any design is safe until a new flaw is encountered.
Google's Investment Partner (Score:1)
You will notice Google isn't going to own these plants. If something goes wrong its partner will have to pay the bill. Or the public, if the partner can't come up with the money. Google's risk is limited to its investment, but it will get all the benefits of the power if they ever produce any.
each of three planned sites. (Score:1)
"It's unknown where the three proposed sites will be located"
Well if the sites are planned then someone must know where they will be...
Re: (Score:2)
SAM batteries can be set up fairly quickly these days.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, and until they secure the sites, they're not going to say shit. That's quite simply to protect the price, as they are likely buying with a freshly incorporated LLC with no easy connection to Google unless you go looking. If they go and announce it by putting pins in Google Maps for people, their price goes sky high.
A shame it's not a fusion plant. (Score:2)
Google has obviously been toying with the idea of getting into the electricity business for a while. [1]Here [youtu.be] is a video of the late Dr Bussard (of Bussard Ramjet/Collector fame) giving a talk about his proposed "Polywell" reactor to a room of Google staff. Sadly the design didn't pan out but it's still a good watch as he talks about some of the non-technical barriers to fusion power research in the US.
[1] https://youtu.be/rk6z1vP4Eo8
The next three entries (Score:2)
How long until they are on the Google Graveyard?
Danger signs (Score:2)
When a corporation is powerful enough to even contemplate building its own nuclear plants to power its data centers... it's time to break up that corporation.
Sorry, but feeding the maw of a monopolist is not a good use of energy.
Re: (Score:2)
I was thinking the same thing. Google is in lega trouble on multiple fronts with the advertising and Chrome. I doubt they have the money.
Yeah, right. (Score:2)
This will never happen.
Re: (Score:1)
The US can't even build nuke plants anymore and now Google is going to build three. Just like that.
Re: (Score:2)
We can build them just fine.
Prove it and build a new one.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, the only two things that keep new nuclear projects from starting in the US is the massive expense, and NIMBY political opposition.
It turns out both of those things are ultimately solved with a shitton of money. It also turns out Google has several shittons of money to spare, in order to secure the eye-popping amount of megawatts they already know they're going to need. They've got enough political clout and political donations to grease the regulatory wheels. There undoubtedly will be lawsuit
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That's why I'm pretty convinced the only way a nuclear abundant America happens is with a French style, state owned enterprise which can solve both problems which you correctly identify and most of the others.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh or if and or when one or more of the SMR folks actually builds a design that can be actually produced at scale. Like if TerraPower comes through with the promise of TWR which is cool. Even then still, I think it makes sense for the nation to own and control a backbone of nuclear energy for both economic and national security reasons.
Re: (Score:2)
What's the advantage? State owned doesn't get to cut through red tape, isn't immune to NIMBY, isn't immune to Greenpeace's bullshit, and doesn't get any reduced permitting or certification expenses. A distinct disadvantage I could see is possibly having a virtually bottomless budget even when it doesn't make any sense, with very little concern for shit like cost plus contracts, which are probably the biggest source of taxpayer waste.
Meanwhile, here you've got Google going all in on this AI crap, which may e
Re: (Score:1)
> The US can't even build nuke plants anymore and now Google is going to build three. Just like that.
No. Google **CLAIMS** it is going to invest some unknown amount of money in a company that has only existed for 3 years and who doesn't actually do anything. As noted at the bottom of the article, this is nothing more than Google trying to Greenwash its massive electricity consumption with vague nuclear deals.
Re: (Score:2)
Most likely [1]modular reactors. [youtu.be]
[1] https://youtu.be/wnHyYKNnUTo
Re: (Score:2)
> This will never happen.
Yep, between the NIMBYs, regulations, and the bean counters who will eventually realize they can't financially recover from this type of investment - this is all just DOA.