Washington should stay out of US nuclear renaissance

Published October 20, 2024 12:01am ET



The voracious appetite of Big Tech companies that need energy to power the data centers behind their artificial intelligence creations has produced a welcome result, though one that environmental radicals do not want and have managed to thwart for decades: The United States is enjoying a nuclear power renaissance, and the best thing Washington can do to help is stay out of the way.

In just the past two months, Amazon Web Services signed a deal with Virginia’s Dominion Energy to develop three small modular reactors near existing nuclear power facilities at Lake Anna. Google agreed to finance seven small modular nuclear reactors with a startup company called Kairos, although it has not yet been determined where the facilities will be built. Microsoft inked a deal with Constellation Energy of Maryland to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, which the company plans to rename the Crane Clean Energy Center.

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