Source of clean power or controversy?

A global race for nuclear augmentation is on. Over 40 countries are expanding capacity, which will treble nuclear energy availability by 2050

- ANIL NAIR

GALLOPING ENERGY DEMANDS of modern-day information technology (IT) operations — including cloud services, big data processing, artificial intelligence (AI) usage, and 24x7 high-performance computing at hyperscale data centres — are forcing the industry to go nuclear. Little wonder that large technology companies, which were more focused on wind and solar sources, are looking very seriously at nuclear plants to provide emission-free power.

Microsoft has signed up with Constellation Energy to revive the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania by 2028, promising to consume all the power it can generate over 20 years. Bill Gates has invested $1 billion in TerraPower, which will develop small reactors, partnering with Warren Buffett's PacifiCorp. Google is working with Kairos Power, a producer of small modular reactors (SMR), and will buy all their nuclear power when they commence production in 2030. Amazon, similarly, is investing in X-Energy, an SMR company.

Nuclear energy, found in the nucleus of an atom, is extracted to produce electricity through two atomic reactions — nuclear fission, in which uranium is used as a fuel to split atoms to release energy, or nuclear fusion, where lighter nuclei like hydrogen are combined to produce considerable energy. Arguably, fusion is safer as it does not involve chain reactions or cause explosions, but has proved somewhat utopian thus far.