Facebook owner Meta is aiming for a nuclear capacity of up to 4 GW

Wednesday, December 4, 2024

The company, whose brands include Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is issuing a call for proposals “to identify nuclear energy developers to help us achieve our AI innovation and sustainability goals.”

The goal is between 1 and 4 GW of new nuclear power generation capacity in the United States. “We are seeking developers with strong community engagement, development, permitting and execution expertise who have the ability to develop new nuclear energy resources – either small modular reactors or larger nuclear reactors,” says the notice announcing the request for proposal (RFP).

It continues: “We are taking an open approach with this RFP so that we can work with others in the industry to bring new nuclear energy online.” The deadline for applications for the qualifications to be considered is January 3rd. The first RFP proposals must be submitted by February 7th.

A blog post with more background said: “We are looking for developers who can help accelerate the availability of new nuclear generators and create sufficient scale to achieve material cost reductions through the deployment of multiple units to meet future energy needs of Meta.” and advance the broader decarbonization of the industry. We believe that working with partners who ultimately authorize, design, construct, finance, build and operate these power plants will ensure the long-term thinking needed to accelerate nuclear technology.

Meta says nuclear energy is more capital intensive, requires more time to develop, has more regulatory requirements and has a longer operational life. Therefore, “we need to include nuclear energy projects earlier in their development life cycle and take their operational requirements into account when designing contracts.” “Because scaling the use of nuclear technology offers the best chance of reducing costs quickly, we can work with a cross-project and cross-site Partners ensure that we can carry out the operation strategically.”

The Facebook owner’s decision to build its own nuclear energy supply follows in the footsteps of other tech giants Microsoft, Google and Amazon and is the result of the enormous energy demand required for huge and growing data centers with the development of artificial intelligence to increase this energy demand even further increase. As with renewable energy, nuclear energy provides carbon-free electricity, but more importantly, it also delivers this electricity 24/7, which is a key requirement of data centers.