Guest columnist Al Norman: Happy Nuke Year for tech kings, industry

Al Norman
Published: 01-01-2025 12:41 PM |
Executives in the nuclear power industry are clinking glasses this New Year’s Day, with high hopes to make nuclear great again in 2025. Technology industry barons, from Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos, are green-scrubbing nukes to make them presentable as a “clean” energy source.
Six months ago, presidential candidate Donald Trump told the New York Post: “Starting on day one, I will approve new drilling, new pipelines, new refineries, new power plants, new reactors …We will create more electricity for these new industries that can only function with massive electricity.”
In Deep Blue Massachusetts, the State House is lit up with green lights for clean nuclear. The Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a nonprofit “advanced nuclear energy” promoter, quotes a legislative leader of the clean energy law as remarking: “There’s an acceptance now that nuclear needs to be on par with other non-emitting sources.” The new law authorizes the commonwealth to enter into long-term contracts with the Millstone and Seabrook nuclear plants for several decades. In return, Connecticut will buy into an offshore wind project with Massachusetts.
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, has developed Small Modular Reactor (SMR) partnerships with nuclear providers as part of his plan to transition to carbon-free energy. “Nuclear power is one part of that mix,” an Amazon promotion reads. Bezos is pursuing Small Modular Reactor (SMR) agreements to satisfy Amazon’s appetite for electricity to power the Amazon Web Services Artificial Intelligence Data Centers. AMZN has three agreements to construct SMRs — advanced reactors with a smaller footprint.
“Our agreements will encourage the construction of new nuclear technologies,” says AMZN, “that will generate energy for decades to come.” AMZN unveiled a series of deals to invest in four small nuclear reactors in Washington state.
But when AMZN tried to tap into a data center “behind the meter”(separate from the grid) at a nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) pulled the plug in a 2-1 decision. Two Republican commissioners voted against the deal, and two Democrats abstained. One Republican wrote: “Co-location arrangements … could have huge ramifications for both grid reliability and consumer costs.” But a new White House staff will soon oversee FERC policy.
Bill Gates founded TerraPower 18 years ago to redesign nuclear reactors. TerraPower built a reactor in Wyoming, called Natrium, which is a sodium “fast-neutron” reactor linked to a molten “solar salt”-based storage system. Gates claims his reactor is “the most advanced nuclear facility on earth.” But according to the Union of Concerned Scientists’ report, the Natrium reactor will be less “uranium-efficient,” and “would not reduce the amount of waste that requires long-term isolation in a geologic repository.”
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The Union of Concerned Scientists warns that “a sodium-cooled fast reactor could experience uncontrollable power increases that result in rapid core melting. When it comes to safety and security (these) reactors are significantly worse than conventional light-water reactors.”
Constellation Energy, “the largest producer of carbon-free energy,” announced a deal with Microsoft several months ago to reopen Three Mile Island to power Bill Gates’ data centers for two decades starting in 2028. Google has also announced a deal to buy nuclear energy from several fluoride salt-cooled high-hemperature reactors built by Kairos Power of California.
According to a Pew Research survey last May, 56% of Americans say they support nuclear power plants to generate electricity. That’s less than Americans who favor solar (78%) and wind (72%), but since 2020, support for nuclear power has grown 13%. But for citizens who lived through nuclear disasters at Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986) and Fukishima (2011), survey polls don’t matter.
Franklin County-based Citizens Awareness Network (CAN) reports that “the resurrection of nuclear power as a solution for anything is a travesty. For all its claims, nuclear power is neither clean nor green.” Executive Director Deb Katz notes: “It’s a dirty, toxic technology. High level nuclear waste is stranded at reactor sites across the country. Four nuclear waste sites surround Massachusetts. There is no solution for this waste and none for the foreseeable future. With climate disruption, these sites and our communities are not safe.”
Katz says artificial intelligence “uses massive amounts of energy to run, and like nuclear power, massive amounts of water to cool its systems.” Ratepayers won’t benefit from expanded nuclear power: “This power will be siphoned off to subsidize tech companies with no connection to the communities that will pay the price for their grand schemes.”
We celebrate this New Year, but it may be filled with what Katz calls “worn-out propaganda from a failed industry, and a willing regulator.”
Al Norman’s Pushback column is published in the Recorder the first and third Wednesday of each month.