Switch to more nuclear energy to power ever hungry AI

The Biden administration wants to preempt price hikes as government agencies compete with energy-hungry data centers and made a 10-year, $840 million nuclear energy contract is for 10 million megawatt-hours of electricity.

The agency awarded the contract to Constellation, which operates the nation’s largest nuclear fleet, and recently announced an agreement with Microsoft to restart a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the site of the worst nuclear energy accident in US history.

Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft have all inked nuclear energy deals over the past year. Silicon Valley is increasingly turning to nuclear energy to satiate rising electricity demand from AI data centers.

The Biden administration has also made nuclear energy a key part of its plan to transition the US away from fossil fuels to energy sources that don’t cause climate change. Last October, the Department of Energy announced a $1.52 billion loan to help restart a retired nuclear generating station in Covert Township, Michigan. 

Original article published at The Verge.