Amazon-backed
A project to build one of the nation’s first next-generation nuclear facilities has just announced its name — the Cascade Advanced Energy Center — and shared renderings of the plant. The effort includes a coalition of partners by which engineers are coming together to build reactors X-energy And Amazon is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get the effort off the ground.
Amazon-backed
The question now is whether it will be enough to start a new wave of innovation in US nuclear power – a field that America originally pioneered in the 1980s?
“It is not for the faint of heart,” said To Ben RaineSenior Vice President of Global Business Development and Deputy Commercial Officer of X-Energy. “It’s a difficult thing — to take this kind of new technology and bring it to market.”
As of 2020, negotiations with X-Energy are ongoing Shakti North-WestA consortium of Washington public utilities and the operator of the Pacific Northwest’s only operating nuclear plant are trying to initiate a merger “Amazon-backed”.
Then a year ago, Amazon publicly entered the picture, leading a $700 million investment round in X-Energy and pledging to spend $334 million to fund the necessary early stages of deployment, including development, licensing and construction.
“We said, ‘We want enough of that power, and we want to be an enabler of this technology, so we’ll fund it,'” said Daniel GrossDirector of Amazon’s Climate Commitment Fund.
Amazon — like other tech giants — is hungry for large amounts of energy to fuel its data centers, which are growing rapidly as artificial intelligence increases computational demand. Nuclear is attractive because it produces no carbon emissions and can operate 24/7, unlike wind and solar power which are available intermittently.
Amazon-backed
The facility will be located near Richland, Wash., near Energy Northwest’s Columbia Generating Station nuclear plant. The initial goal is to install a cluster of four small modular reactors (SMRs) that can produce up to 320 MW of power, but the overall “Amazon-backed” vision is to build a total of 12 reactors with a capacity of about one gigawatt.
If all the funding, permits and public support come together, construction should begin within the next five years, with the plant coming online in the 2030s.
path to power
The US has no operating SMRs – China and Russia do – but the expectation is that they will be faster and cheaper than previous reactor designs. That said, the facilities will cost billions of dollars and take years to complete.
Amazon-backed
X-Energy’s first nuclear facility is planned for Seadrift, Texas, and is being built in partnership with Dow to power its chemical manufacturing site. The project has submitted a construction permit application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for engineering and preliminary design and approval for the project.
Hopefully the Washington project will come together a little more easily than the first of its kind in Texas.
“You don’t want to start construction or start moving dirt until your design is completely ready. As soon as you start having a lot of people and “Amazon-backed” a lot of work on site, that’s when the costs start piling up,” said Greg CullenVice President of Energy Services and Development at Energy Northwest. “So you want to make sure you’re ready.”
Cullen did not put a price on the initial phase of the project but indicated it would be more than $2 billion. He said the effort is seeking additional funding from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Loan Programs.
Amazon-backed
While X-energy is providing the technology for its Xe-100 reactor, Energy Northwest will lead the construction. Cullen said the company will soon announce the consortium of companies that will perform the work.
And in August, X-energy and Amazon signed a “strategic cooperation agreement” with South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power to accelerate SMR construction by supporting supply chains and manufacturing processes.
Aim for scale
For Amazon, support for the Cascade Advanced Energy Center is part of a much larger initiative. The agency has set a goal of installing 5 gigawatts of nuclear power in the United States by 2039.
“One thing that Amazon does well is scale technology,” said Brandon WareHead of Power and Water at Amazon Web Services for North and South America. “We’ve done this time and time again … we’ll go and make an investment and then learn how to scale it, reduce costs, make it more accessible.”
Amazon-backed
Targeting SMRs for amplification is a “natural fit,” Ware added.
The agency believes nuclear is aligned with its climate ambitions. Amazon matches all of its electricity use to clean energy and is the largest corporate purchaser of wind, solar and other renewable sources. That said, it is struggling to cut its carbon footprint to reach its goal of net-zero emissions by 2040 as the AI-boom boosts energy use. Amazon reported that its carbon footprint grew by 6% last year.
Amazon dibs half of the 320 megawatts of electricity that will be produced by the first four reactors at the Washington site, but local “Amazon-backed” utilities will take all of it if electricity prices become too high to afford.
Cullen said that if all goes well in the initial phase, building the other eight reactors will be easier because the permits will cover the full build out. The added reactor will produce enough electricity for approx A million houses And should come at a lower cost.
“Amazon recognizes the role they can — and are willing — to play,” Cullen said. The company can take some initial risk and bring in that catalyst capital, he said, which is “very difficult for utilities.