GE Hitachi Nuclear Energyโs BWRX-300 small modular reactor incorporates proven components.
Courtesy: GE Vernova
Are we really so ignorantly blind as to accept nuclear power plants springing up and spitting directly in the face of growing threats of nuclear war that, if begun, will likely end human and other life on planet Earth? Whether or not commercial nuclear power plants would play a role in a nuclear World War III, depends on whether they can be built and operational before such a war begins, the fatal end of which will end most likely in a matter of a few days, leaving only isolated remnants of human and animal life.
Nuclear power plants are already involved right now, today, in a faction or opening salvo of likely nuclear war. Russia has continually for nearly three years attacked a Ukraine nuclear power plant โ the largest in Europe โ and the rest of Europe and potentially the entire world โ including Russia itself โ are increasingly exposed, directly involved in a potential nuclear war that would span the entire globe once begun.
So why, oh why, is humanity suddenly endorsing the construction and eventual operation of โneighborhoodโ SMRs near our cities and towns beginning sometime in the next decade if we all make it that far. Foresight is certainly not a thoughtful tool in the preliminary evaluation of such an enterprise.
Oh, yeah, we need it, cannot do without it โ evidently not so much to be warm and keep the lights on โ but to produce enough nuclear power to allow major social media and technology companies to turn our intelligence and our functional usefulness as human beings into lifeโs second-string led by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and intelligent robots who would control us in a few years turning us into their slaves or, even more likely, trim us down to a few servants to serve them as needed. ~llaw
Technology Executive Council
Published Sun, Oct 5 20259:40 AM EDTUpdated 6 Hours Ago
Kevin Williams
WATCH LIVE
Key Points
- Amazon, Google, and others big tech companies are helping to fuel a nuclear power comeback to feed their data centers.
- The first small modular reactions (SMRs) in the United States could be operable by the end of the decade, but opinions vary on whether it is realistic to expect widespread deployment over the next decade.
- Experts say the nuclear technology has advanced to where risks of failure are low, and Pew polling shows increasing support for nuclear over the last decade, especially among Republicans. The future of energy is subatomic,โ Bill Gates wrote in โPower Magazineโ this week.
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energyโs BWRX-300 small modular reactor incorporates proven components.
Courtesy: GE Vernova
Van Buren County is a rural redoubt in southwestern Michigan, a quiet corner of a swing state. Pillow soft sand dunes shift and shape along the shores of Lake Michigan. And the county seat โ Paw Paw โ is named after a quintessentially Midwestern fruit.
โIt is a beautiful natural environment with gorgeous sand dunes that you donโt see in other parts of the world,โ says Daywi Cook, whose family has lived in this area for five generations. โA lot of folks like to live here because of the solitude.โ
Covert Townshipโs tranquility seems to belie its place as the vanguard to a potential nuclear transformation. The Van Buren County township has been home to the Palisades Nuclear Plant since 1971. The aging plant was decommissioned in 2022 but is being brought back into service through an overย $1 billion loanย secured under the Biden administrationโs Inflation Reduction Act, with the first installment provided by the federal government this year. In addition to reactivating the plant, the site is also expected to house the nationโs first small modular reactors (SMRs).
Small modular reactorsย are factory-built nuclear power plants that are much smaller than traditional reactors (typically 300 megawatts or less). The SMRs are usually designed to be mass-produced and shipped to sites for faster, less costly installation.
The future of energy in the U.S. may be unfolding in this unassuming corner of Michigan where the Holtec Corporation is constructing two SMR-300 units which will be co-located with the existing 800-megawatt Palisades plant. The SMRs are planned to be operational by the early 2030s.
โThere are still some unknowns but Holtec has been inviting us into the conversation,โ said Cook, who is the township supervisor. She says the areaโs familiarity with nuclear energy and the plantโs safety record has gone a long way to assuage the countyโs residents.
Holtec did not respond to a request for comment.
Cook is hoping the recommissioned legacy plant and the SMRs will give the county some needed economic stability which is guided largely by seasonal swings.
โWe are known as the Catskills of Chicago. There are a lot of short-term rentals that boom in the summer,โ Cook said, which she explained then sit empty in the winter. โIt would be nice to have year-round stability,โ Cook added.
Zach Morris, executive director of Market One, a local association of business and government leaders that promotes economic growth in Cass and Van Buren Counties, Michigan, says that the area is uniquely positioned to be the leading edge of the nationโs nuclear renaissance. Because of the existing plant, the nuclear knowledge is ready and in the workforce, and the area has ample power to make power.
Morris says the recommissioned legacy nuclear plant will employ 600 people, and the two SMRs will employ a combined 300 people with salaries averaging $107,000. โThat is $32 million in payroll annually, resulting in significant money being spent in groceries, restaurants, and donations to non-profits,โ Morris said. And with the areaโs nuclear past, thereโs been little opposition to the arrival of SMRs, which he pointed out have been around for awhile, used in the military for years in submarines and aircraft carriers. โThis is not a new technology, but there has not been a need for it until now,โ Morris said.
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A Holtec SMR will provide enough power for 300,000 homes or a data center or two, a drop-in-the-bucket in the sating of demand.
โWe have a national issue, it is a national crisis that we didnโt anticipate five years ago,โ Morris said. โFive years ago nobody saw this coming. Their collective genius didnโt anticipate this,โ he said of data centers coming online without enough power and people who donโt want to give up their AI, streaming services, or cameras. โThat means we have to adapt to the crisis. SMRs are the future,โ Morris said.
To illustrate how much the world of power generation has been upended in short order, Morris offers a stark comparison. โFive years ago we were worried about how we were going to put up with the demand from a 20 megawatt marijuana farm,โ he said, referring to a planned cannabis operation, and adding, โthat is a fraction of what the data centers are asking for.โ
People are using AI for everything from identifying the animal tracks in their backyard to analyzing 10 years of sales data for corporate reports. And this torrent of requests for AI is leading to a torrent of demand for data centers to do the complex computing needed for instant answers. And the demand for data centers โ constructed by tech titans Google, Amazon, and others โ has led to a torrent of demand for electricity.
While the industry works on smaller, scalable nuclear solutions, big tech is taking decommissioned legacy plants out of mothballs. Constellation Energyย plans to restartย the 835-MW Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear generating station in Pennsylvania in 2028, with Microsoft agreeing to buy electricity from the reactivated power plant to power their data centers. And Google recently entered intoย an agreement with Kairos Power and the TVAย for a new nuclear plant.
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Bill Gates has been among the tech titans leading the charge, investing $1 billion in the technology and co-foundingย TerraPower, which is building a next generation nuclear plant in Wyoming. Gateโs company also announced plans recently to explore building a nuclear facility in Kansas.
โBoth fission and fusion are fundamental technologies for humanity to power everything we do. Weโre on the cusp of massive breakthroughs, and itโs clearer now than even before: The future of energy is subatomic,โ Gates wrote inย Power Magazine this week.
Oklo, which OpenAIโs Sam Altman helped to take public beforeย stepping back from his role as chairmanย in April, remainsย a highly speculative public stock market playย on the nuclear potential, with no revenue or power purchase agreements, and is at least several years away from commercial operations. But its shares have boomed since its 2024 IPO.
The feature categories provide articles and information about โall things nuclearโ for you to pick from, usually with up to 3 links with headlines concerning the most important media stories in each category, but sometimes fewer and occasionally even none (especially so with the Yellowstone Caldera). The Categories are listed below in their usual order:
- All Things Nuclear
- Nuclear Power
- Nuclear Power Emergencies
- Nuclear War Threats
- Nuclear War
- Yellowstone Caldera (Note: There is one Yellowstone Caldera bonus story available in todayโs Post.)
- IAEA News (Fridayโs only)
A current Digest of major nuclear media headlines with automated links is listed below by nuclear Category (in the above listed order). If a Category heading does not appear in the daily news Digest, it means there was no news reported from this Category today. Generally, the three best articles in each Category from around the nuclear world(s) are Posted. Occasionally, if a Post is important enough, it may be listed in multiple Categories.
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“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity.โ ~llaw
