Big Tech is going nuclear. In the past week, Amazon agreed with utilities in Washington state to support development of four next-generation “small modular reactors”, with a similar deal in Virginia, and took a stake in X-energy, an SMR developer. Google agreed to buy power from SMRs to be built by a start-up, Kairos Power. And last month Microsoft agreed a 20-year power purchasing deal that will entail Constellation Energy reopening a unit at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania that was shuttered in 2019 (not the one closed in 1979 after a partial meltdown).
大型科技公司正在進軍核能。上周，亞馬遜(Amazon)與華盛頓州的公用事業公司達成協議，將支持開發四座下一代“小型模塊化反應堆”(SMR)，該公司與弗吉尼亞州也達成了類似協議，并入股了小型模塊化反應堆開發商X-energy。谷歌(Google)簽約向初創公司Kairos Power將要建造的小型模塊化反應堆購買電力。上月，微軟(Microsoft)達成了一項為期20年的電力購買協議，該協議將要求Constellation Energy重啟賓夕法尼亞州三里島核電站于2019年關閉的一個機組（不是1979年因部分熔毀而關閉的那個機組）。