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Tech News
The Department of Energy is providing Constellation Energy with $5 billion in loans to expand capacity at eight nuclear plants by 1.1 gigawatts through reactor 'uprates.' Google, Amazon, and Meta have already agreed to buy most or all of the added power from seven of the eight facilities, which span Illinois, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
New BBC reporting indicates photovoltaic solar will supply 10 percent of global power generation by the end of 2026, surpassing nuclear fission output. Solar generation has grown roughly 2,700-fold over the past 26 years while nuclear output has remained largely flat, a trend Oxford energy policy professor Jan Rosenow attributes partly to falling photovoltaic costs driven by Chinese manufacturing supply.
Energy analyst Kingsmill Jones says a sharp drop in solar panel prices in 2023-24 has made solar power unusually cheap, with panels now costing well under $100 and capable of generating electricity for 30 to 40 years with minimal maintenance. He describes the resulting cost level as 'offensively cheap,' pointing to solar's rapid expansion relative to nuclear power.
Nvidia has entered a preliminary partnership with German energy firm PreussenElektra to evaluate whether its decommissioned nuclear power plant sites could be converted into AI data centers. The assessment, announced October 21st, will examine grid connections, land availability and existing industrial infrastructure at the former plants to see if they can support high-performance computing facilities.
Several US nuclear power plants that had been shut down are being evaluated or prepared for restart, with utilities citing rising electricity demand. Data centers, particularly those supporting AI computing, are cited as a key driver of this increased power need.
Researchers cryopreserved pig kidneys in a glass-like frozen state—one for more than a year—then rewarmed and tested them before transplanting them into pigs. The organs regained color and produced urine, indicating they functioned after transplant. The team says it is a major step but still needs to determine whether the technique translates to human organs.
Constellation announced it will spend more than $4.3 billion to boost output at 11 of its nuclear reactors through a process called a power uprate, which involves upgrading equipment like turbines, pumps and transformers to handle more steam from enriched fuel. The company says the added capacity will generate enough electricity to power roughly 700,000 US homes.
Google and Constellation Energy have agreed to a nuclear power deal described as the largest-ever 'uprate' project, a process that increases electricity output from existing reactors rather than building new ones. The agreement links a major tech company with a nuclear operator to expand capacity at current plants.
Researchers critiquing a series of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health studies say they replicated and expanded the same statistical methodology used to link nuclear power plants to elevated cancer rates. Applying that methodology to other landmarks, they found it also attributes huge numbers of cancer deaths to Costco warehouses, private colleges, Harvard itself, and even Major League Baseball stadiums. The critics argue this shows the method produces spurious correlations regardless of the landmark chosen, undermining the original nuclear-cancer papers published in Environmental Health, Nature Communications, and other journals between December and this year.
Amazon has agreed to support Constellation Energy's efforts to expand power generation at its Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland, including exploring the addition of new reactors. The move follows Amazon's earlier decision to scrap a planned data center deal in the state.
MIT Technology Review announced it has finalized its fourth annual Climate Tech Companies to Watch list, set to publish on October 6. The list narrows a broad set of global companies down to 10 selected for their impact on emissions, public safety or health, spanning energy storage, nuclear power and transportation.
An Entrepreneur op-ed argues that electricity, not chip supply, is becoming the binding constraint on AI growth, citing IEA projections that global data-center power use could nearly double from 485 to 950 terawatt-hours by 2030, with AI-specific demand tripling. It notes that by 2027 a single advanced server rack could draw as much peak power as 65 households, and that grid constraints could delay roughly 20% of planned data-center projects.