Azernews.Az

By Alimat Aliyeva

Google has signed a cooperation agreement with nuclear startup Elementl Power, a company that develops projects in the nuclear energy sector, Azernews reports.

The agreement involves investments in the development of three new nuclear power plants with a combined capacity of 1,800 MW, all of which are expected to be commissioned by 2035. However, specific details regarding the technologies to be used, as well as the dates and locations for construction, have yet to be disclosed.

The announced capacity of these new plants is significantly smaller than that of traditional nuclear facilities. For example, the Vogtle Nuclear Power Plant in Georgia, which began operations in 2023, features four reactors with a total capacity of 4,500 MW. Meanwhile, the growing demand for energy from data centers—driven in part by AI—has seen an enormous increase: McKinsey reports that energy requirements for data centers have surged from 30 MW in 2015 to 200 MW in 2024.

Elementl Power, founded in 2022, has yet to implement any projects but positions itself as a "technologically neutral" developer. Its leadership team, including CEO Christopher Colbert (a former executive at NuScale Power), is focused on the development of small modular reactors (SMRs).

This marks Google’s second nuclear energy agreement in the past six months. In October 2024, the company also partnered with Kairos Power to develop molten salt reactors. However, analysts at The Register have noted that, despite the ambitious moves by tech giants like Google, such initiatives may not be sufficient to address the projected energy deficit by 2027.

Google's rapidly increasing energy consumption is closely tied to the growth of AI infrastructure. The company’s 2024 report revealed that greenhouse gas emissions due to AI operations have grown by 13% over the past year and 48% since 2019. At the same time, Alphabet plans to invest $75 billion in 2025 to expand its data centers, which will further increase the demand on the energy grid. This highlights the growing tension between sustainability goals and the surging energy needs of emerging technologies.