Amazon To Fund Proposed Nuclear Plant At Former Indiana Coal Site
Amazon will fund a proposed 960-megawatt nuclear plant in Indiana, with power intended for the regional grid and its data centers.
Amazon has agreed to fund a proposed nuclear power plant at the site of a former coal facility in Indiana. The project, developed with reactor designer X-energy and utility American Electric Power (AEP), aims to supply up to 960 megawatts of electricity to the regional grid and Amazon’s data centers, according to TechCrunch and The Verge.
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What the companies are proposing
The facility would be built at the former Breed Generating Station in Fairbanks, Sullivan County, south of Terre Haute. TechCrunch reports that the coal plant has been demolished. The proposal calls for 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors supplied by X-energy, with AEP operating the plant. Amazon would be its first power customer, according to TechCrunch.
The Verge reports that no construction or operating timeline has been announced and that the agreement’s financial terms have not been disclosed. The Xe-100 reactors remain under development and licensing, the outlet says. According to The Verge, Amazon says the reactors can use air, water or a combination of the two for cooling, potentially allowing them to operate in areas with limited water without increasing demand on local communities.
A larger nuclear plan, with unresolved hurdles
This is the second nuclear project involving Amazon and X-energy, both outlets report. The companies aim to work with utilities to deploy more than 5 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity in the United States by 2039, according to The Verge. TechCrunch describes the Indiana agreement as the companies’ second commercial deal and says it is three times larger than their first.
TechCrunch says X-energy has not yet broken ground on its first planned plant, at a Dow Chemical site southeast of Houston. That project would use four Xe-100 reactors to supply heat and electricity. X-energy says its construction permit is in the final stages of review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, according to TechCrunch. The outlet also reports that Texas has sued over alleged water and solid-waste compliance problems at the Dow site.
Both reports place the Indiana proposal within a wider push to use nuclear power for data centers. The Verge names Meta, Microsoft and Google among the other tech companies exploring nuclear projects for that purpose. TechCrunch notes that recent U.S. nuclear projects have faced major cost overruns and delays, while the hoped-for manufacturing advantages of smaller reactors may take time to materialize.
Potential jobs in Indiana
Amazon says the Indiana project could create 1,000 construction jobs and 100 permanent roles, according to The Verge. Those are projections, not announced hires, and the absence of a construction schedule leaves open when any such jobs might become available.
Sources
This story was compiled by AI from the reports below. Read the originals for the full details.