Amazon, Google, Microsoft and different huge tech corporations are turning to nuclear energy to gasoline AI, which wants extra vitality because it grows extra complicated. Final month, Amazon invested $500 million in nuclear vitality, and Google signed its first nuclear power deal. In September, Microsoft moved to reopen Three Mile Island, the three-mile nuclear plant close to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to energy its AI vitality wants.
Not all of Huge Tech’s nuclear efforts have gone easily: Earlier this month, Meta’s plans to open a nuclear energy plant were halted when the corporate discovered a uncommon bee species subsequent to the plant. Meta additionally confronted regulatory challenges attempting to open the plant.
James Walker is the CEO of NANO Nuclear Vitality, the primary nuclear microreactor firm listed on NASDAQ. A microreactor is sufficiently small to be moved round by a truck, and it converts heat from a nuclear response into electrical energy.
On the time of this writing, NANO’s market cap was round $700 million; it was based in 2022.
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In an unique interview, Walker advised Entrepreneur about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear vitality and the toughest a part of constructing a nuclear startup. He additionally recognized areas the place new companies can thrive. Responses have been edited for size and readability.
Entrepreneur: What are the upsides and disadvantages of opening nuclear energy vegetation?
Walker: On the upside, it brings on-line a large, established supply of dependable, carbon-free energy — one thing that is important as energy demands soar.
The draw back is that older vegetation want important upgrades to fulfill trendy security requirements, which will be expensive and time-consuming.
Does nuclear vitality create a viable different to conventional strategies of powering AI?
Completely. AI-driven knowledge facilities want constant, high-output energy across the clock, and conventional renewables like photo voltaic and wind, whereas beneficial, merely cannot present that alone.
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Nuclear vitality, significantly with improvements like microreactors, affords a gradual, carbon-free energy source well-suited to AI’s calls for. It is an important piece of the puzzle if we need to proceed pushing boundaries in AI with out working into energy limitations.
Why begin a nuclear vitality firm?
Fossil fuels have gotten us far, however we all know they’re neither sustainable nor environment friendly sufficient to assist the vitality calls for of tomorrow.
Nuclear vitality, particularly with advances in microreactor expertise, offers us a singular solution to generate clear, constant energy that may be sited anyplace, which even offers it a giant benefit over all different renewables.
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Are there any areas or industries the place you see issues that new companies can remedy?
One space ripe for innovation is vitality storage and the broader renewable sector. Battery expertise is advancing, however there’s nonetheless a lot potential for brand new companies to search out methods to retailer, distribute and effectively use renewable vitality.
One other huge space is the logistics of gasoline transportation and nuclear supplies, particularly for secure and cost-effective dealing with.
Moreover, we’d like extra options for recycling and decreasing waste in vitality manufacturing — not simply nuclear, however throughout all sectors. There’s an enormous marketplace for new concepts that may maintain prices low whereas addressing environmental issues head-on.
