reactors

Amazon’s nuclear dream for AI continues to advance. This will be one of its first plants with modular reactors

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artificial intelligence electricity demand is multiplying of data centers, and with it, the interest of large technology companies in energy sources capable of keeping them running 24 hours a day. Amazon has gone one step further with Cascade, a new generation nuclear plant that aims to change the way the company powers its digital infrastructure. It is not a simple energy installation: it is the symbol of an ambition that combines autonomy and energy security in the midst of the AI ​​revolution. This industry is not only transforming the labor marketis also testing the global energy infrastructure. Large data centers that process millions of operations per second need a constant supply, and renewable sources, although clean, do not always guarantee that stability. Hence, nuclear energy is once again gaining prominence as a strong and carbon-free option. For companies like Amazon, the challenge is no longer just to innovate in algorithms, but to guarantee the energy that keeps them running without interruptions. What we know about the plant. Named Cascade Advanced Energy Facility, Amazon’s new nuclear plant will be built near Richland, Washington state. Over there, the company will work with Energy Northwest and X-energyresponsible for the design of the reactors. Cascade will be located near the current Columbia Generating Station. Amazon defines it as a key step to reduce emissions and provide constant electricity to the network that supports its global digital infrastructure. Cascade will rely on X-energy’s Xe-100 design, a next-generation modular reactor designed to be more efficient and safer than conventional models. The first phase adds 320 MW with four SMRs, and the plant can be expanded by up to 12 units to reach 960 MW. The scheme includes three 320 MW sections that will occupy only a few blocks. This modularity is one of the keys to the project: it allows production to be scaled according to demand and takes up much less space than a classic nuclear power plant, which can extend over more than 2.5 km². A different ‘campus’. Unlike traditional power plants, the Cascade plant will be organized as a small energy campus. Its modules will include reactor buildings, service areas, turbines, condensers and a space for temporary fuel storage. The complex, according to X-energy projections, will occupy a compact area that is more similar to an industrial estate than a classic nuclear facility. This modular approach allows you to build in phases and maintain operation without major interruptions in future expansions. Amazon’s schedule for Cascade moves forward in stages. The company plans to begin construction before the end of this decade and reach the operational phase in the 2030s. These are tentative goals, which depend on both the licensing process and the industrial development of the Xe-100 reactors. A project that needs labor. According to Amazon, Cascade will create more than 1,000 construction jobs and at least 100 permanent positions in areas such as engineering and operations. In parallel, Columbia Basin College will open the Energy Learning Center, funded by the Department of Energy, with a simulator that reproduces the control of the Xe-100 reactor. This program will allow young people in the region to access qualified jobs and reinforce Washington’s role in the transition to clean energy. More initiatives. Amazon is not the only technology company that sees nuclear energy as an ally for artificial intelligence. Microsoft has signed an agreement to reopen a plant and, in parallel, is studying long-term contracts with nuclear fusion projects, still in the experimental phase. Google, for its part, collaborates with companies in the sector to integrate small modular reactors (SMR) into its supply network. Although the paths differ, they all share the same challenge: powering a digital infrastructure that consumes more electricity every year. Although Amazon has shared many of the details of Cascade, the project is still in an early phase. There are no definitive dates for the start of construction or for the commissioning of the reactors. It has also not been specified what volume of energy will be allocated to its data centers and what part will be integrated into the local network. Everything indicates that the coming years will be decisive in testing whether modular nuclear energy can respond to the pace demanded by artificial intelligence. In Xataka | An open secret: far from being in decline, oil companies are doing business thanks to AI

The good news is that there is a material that works well on the walls of fusion reactors. The bad: it is lithium

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We know how the sun works. Another thing is to imitate it. If we got Build a nuclear fusion reactorwe would have clean, safe and practically unlimited energy. But doing so involves incredibly complex engineering challenges. The wall problem. One of the more colossal challenges In nuclear fusion is to build a container that supports a hottest plasma than the sun’s core. For years, scientists have been experiencing with various materials, from graphite to high resistance metals such as tungsten. A recent researchthe result of an international collaboration of nine institutions, confirms that we have a star candidate that works spectacularly well for the wall of the reactors: lithium. A self -refrasinal shield. To understand why lithium is so attractive, you must first visualize the hell that is unleashed inside a tokamak, the most common fusion reactor design. A hydrogen gas, mainly its deuterium and tritium isotopesmore than 100 million degrees Celsius is heated to become a plasma. Magnetic fields potently confine it so that it does not touch anything, but it is impossible to prevent some particles from escaping and violently shocking against the interior walls of the reactor. This is where lithium shines because it can be used in a liquid state. Instead of eroding and degrading with each impact, it flows and heals himself instantly. This self -referential liquid layer would protect the solid components behind. Moreover, if the reactor walls are hot enough, the lithium can form a steam shield that absorbs much of the impact before it reaches the solid surface. Goodbye to graphite? Research shows that lithium is not only a passive shield, but an active plasma conditioner. Instead of reflecting the fuel particles that escape, cooling the edge of plasma and destabilizing it, lithium absorbs them. This helps keep heat where it has to be and, therefore, to stabilize the fusion reaction and improve the confinement of plasma. According to researchers, lithium is a promising candidate to replace graphite, which has a much higher erosion rate. Applied in tungsten walls, it allows to operate the fusion to greater power densities, opening the door to more compact and efficient reactors. Two ways to apply it. The researchers tested, on the one hand, to cover the lithium walls before lighting the plasma and, on the other, to inject lithium powder directly on the plasma during the reactor operation. The injection was much more effective when creating a uniform and stable temperature profile, one of the sacred conditions for commercial fusion. All tests were carried out at the Tokamak Diii-D of General Atomics with financing from the United States Department of Energy. The authors of the study, published in the Materials and Energy nuclear magazine, are researchers of the Princeton plasma physics laboratory and his collaborators. Bad news. In addition to exercising even more pressure on the already tensioning lithium market (Although it does not scarce, it is not extracted to the rhythm that grows its demand), there is a more alarming problem. The lithium is too much Well at work. Catch the tritium with a very high efficiency, preventing it from returning to plasma to be used as fuel. If the tritio is stuck to the walls, the reactor ends up running out of fuel and the cycle breaks. The accumulation of radioactive tritium in cold areas and difficult to access the reactor also greatly complicates its maintenance and is a safety risk. To top it off, the retention is more significant if the lithium is injected with the reactor in operation, the most efficient application method. A possible solution. The key is that these experiments were carried out with lithium in solid state, at temperatures below its melting point. In a real reactor, with liquid lithium, The solution could be a “dialysis” system: Instead of bathing the walls by a lithium river and leaving it there, it would be continuously extracted from the reactor, taken to a processing plant to separate the tritium trapped, and pumped back, clean and ready to continue working. The reactor design would have to adapt to this new proposal. It would be necessary to avoid the cold areas where lithium and tritio could accumulate and stay stagnant, keep the walls at higher and more controlled temperatures, and include the circuit to extract, processes and continuously introduce lithium. A material that solves multiple problems in our mission of simulating the sun, but in return introduces new and also complex. Image | General Atomics In Xataka | There is an alternative to nuclear fusion. It is already underway and is extraordinarily promising

While France and Switzerland turn off reactors by heat, Spain continues to generate electricity. The difference is in the forecast

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Europe is living Your worst heat wave with temperatures that have exceeded 40 ° C in several countries. The most unheard of, if one can see the situation, is that some European plants have had to close temporarily. An unusual fact. The heat not only feels in the streets: it is also affecting the heart of the European energy system. According to Euronews, This week three nuclear reactors have been disconnected in France and Switzerland for the temperature rise in the rivers they use to cool. In Girfch, to the south of France, one of the reactors stopped as the Garona River approached at 28 ° C. In Switzerland, the Beznau Central did the same: one of the reactors was out of service and the second was operating in half capacity by heat in the Aare River. Preventive measures. The reason behind this temporal closures responds to an environmental regulation that forces to reduce production when river water is excessively heated, since it could affect the ecosystem by being returned even longer, such as have detailed in Euronews. In addition, restrictions or power reductions have been applied in French centrals such as Buity, Blayais and Cruas. The origin of the problem. Water is key in any nuclear power plant. Without it, there is no way to keep the reactor temperature under control. But with increasingly hot rivers, especially during heat wavesthat function begins to fail. The worst thing is that many of these plants were built between 60 and 80, when climate change was not a factor to take into account. Now the consequences are clear: According to The New York TimesFrance could end up losing up to four times more electricity in summer if this type of closures becomes usual. A problem that aggravates. During the heat waves, more electricity is needed to light the air conditioners or fans, so the demand increases at the same time as the generation capacity falls. This has generated a domino effect on the European electricity market. According to the economistthe megavatio hour has come to double in a matter of days in France, affecting countries such as Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium that depend on gala electricity. And in Spain? Despite registering equal or even higher temperatures, Spain has not had to close any heat power plant. As He explained The economist, the key is in infrastructure and design. Unlike France, where many plants depend directly on rivers such as Garona or Rhone, in Spain solutions such as cooling towers have been adopted, which cool the water before returning it to the natural environment. A paradigmatic example is the Trillo plant, whose ability to operate during heat waves is due to this type of system. Also, like We have detailed in this mediumSpanish nuclear power plants are designed with a triple cooling system: a closed primary circuit that contains the fuel bars, a secondary circuit that generates the steam to move the turbines, and a third external circuit that introduces cold water – teacher of rivers, reservoirs or towers – to condense the steam. In addition, after Fukushima, all centrals incorporated portable and self -employment systems, capable of maintaining cooling functions even to climatic emergencies or electrical cuts. More interconnection? The situation that France and Switzerland are going through is not an isolated event, but a symptom of an still fragmented energy Europe. While in southern France reactors by heat go out, Spain keeps its centrals operational and could even contribute more electricity to the continent if there are better interconnections. These situations show the bottleneck that limits the electrical export capacity of the Iberian Peninsula. Spain has a nuclear park adapted to heat and a growing renewable base – specially solar and wind – that could serve as an energy lung for a Europe increasingly affected by extreme events. The energy future of the continent not only goes to adapt to heat, but also by connecting better. Image | Pixabay Xataka | Israel has been bombing the nuclear facilities that build other countries around its surroundings. This is the real risk of collapse

The AI ​​has no future without nuclear energy when even Nvidia has begun to pray to Bill Gates reactors

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Data centers will be responsible for 10% of the increase in energy demand until 2030, according to the International Energy Agency (IE). The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) What we are living has triggered the proliferation of these facilities In the US, China, Japan, Singapore, India, Germany, Netherlands or Ireland, among other nations. And for the moment there is no indication that invites us to anticipate that this trend will be exhausted in the medium term. A data center dedicated to large AI can exceed 150 MWand, precisely, these are the facilities that are proliferating the most. In fact, in 2024 its global consumption amounted to about 415 TWH, a figure that represents around the 1.5% of global electricity consumption. To solve this challenge and guarantee to data centers the delivery of energy that more and more companies need nuclear. The last one who has done is Nvidia. And is that the company led by Jensen Huang has participated in a financing round Of 650 million dollars to support Terrapower projects, the nuclear energy company founded by Bill Gates in 2006. With this decision NVIDIA adds to the strategy that defends the use of Compact modular reactors (known as SMR for its denomination in English) with the purpose of delivering to the data centers the electricity they need. And, incidentally, put one more leg in a sector with an indisputable growth potential. Terrapower is already building the first Natrium nuclear reactor The nuclear fission reactor that this company has designed is a modular and compact design refrigerated by sodium that uses a molten salts storage system. Because of its characteristics, it is about A fourth generation machine That, according to those responsible, it will be able to generate electricity in half of the cost that a conventional nuclear fission reactor. Whatever the interesting thing is that the first Natrium nuclear reactor in Terrapower is being built in a Wyoming Mining town (USA), and, according to Bill Gates, will be completed in 2030. Nvidia has participated in a financing round of 650 million dollars to support Terrapower projects It sounds good, but we must not overlook that it is a new generation design, so a priori the five years that Terrapower manages seem too optimistic. However, this reactor has an important asset in your favor: on paper Its tuning should be faster and cheaper than that of conventional reactors. In addition, a Spanish public company is participating in the construction of this machine. It is called Ensa (Nuclear Teams, SA), is Cantabrian and has more than five decades of experience in the field of design and manufacturing large components for the nuclear industry. There is no doubt that the fact that Terrapower has decided to ally with it is a boost that will surely reinforce its international image. And, perhaps, he opens the door of other latest generation nuclear energy projects. “This is the first reactor of these characteristics that is manufactured following the highest standards of safety and quality in accordance with the most demanding nuclear regulations,” has declared A Enso spokesman. Interestingly, this Spanish company will participate in The manufacture of the Natrium reactor lid. A last interesting note: currently also intervenes in the construction of ITER (International Thermonuclear Experctor reactor), The experimental reactor of nuclear fusion that an international consortium led by Europe is pointing in the French town of Cadarache. Image | Terrapower More information | The Register In Xataka | “We are already on the last step”: how Spain has done with the key to realize nuclear fusion

of nuclear veto to small renewable support reactors

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The blackout that affected Spain and Portugal on April 28 He has revived the debate of renewables and nuclear. An discussion that has overreach the borders of the Iberian Peninsula and the country’s reference country is discussing it: Denmark. Short. Lars Aagaard, Minister of Climate, Energy and Public Services of Denmark, has confirmed in the Politiken environment that the government is evaluating the possibility of raising the veto to nuclear energy. In addition, he has indicated that the evaluation process will take a year and focus on the pros and cons of reviving nuclear energy. The nuclear past. Denmark made the decision to close the door to the nuclear in 1985. That period was marked by the accidents of Three Mile Island and, a few years later, Chernobil, so he ended up sealing the Danish rejection of a technology seen as dangerous and unpredictable. And what do you want? The Danish minister has mentioned that the analysis will focus on small modular reactors (SMR), a technology that promises shorter construction times and lower financial risks than large traditional plants. However, many SMR are still in the design phase or waiting for regulatory approval, What a question raises about its short -term availability. A little note. SMRs are advanced nuclear reactors with a power capacity of up to 300 electric megawatts per unit, which represents about a third of the generation capacity of conventional nuclear reactors. These reactors can be assembled at the factory and transported to the installation site, which facilitates its deployment in areas with limited infrastructure or in combination with renewable sources to provide a generation of flexible electricity and low carbon emissions. The Danish energy matrix. More than 80% of electricity From the country comes from its wind farms on the high seas, consolidating as a totally renewable country. In addition, it is interconnected with its neighbors, Sweden and Norway, which supply hydroelectric and nuclear energy almost immediately. Voices found. The debate on nuclear energy has polarized the Danish Parliament. As has detailed The Financial Times, four right -wing games have requested to meet with the minister to support nuclear as reinforcement of the electrical system. While the most environmentalist sectors have warned about the risks inherent to nuclear energy and the possibility of diverting funds and care of renewable energy investments. On the border. Neighboring countries the discussion is lived differently. On the one hand, Sweden has Three reactors in operationbut the current government He is trying to reopen More nuclear plants. On the other hand, Finland Inaugurated a central which has evidenced budgetary problems around nuclear projects. For its part, Norway, although a little further from Denmark, has chosen to focus on hydroelectric energy, staying outside the nuclear debate. Forecasts Denmark is at an energy crossroads. With a matrix based on renewable energy, the country must decide whether to continue betting solely on them or consider nuclear energy as a strategic complement. The experience of its neighbors, advances in SMR technology and the global context of energy crisis will be determining factors in a debate that promises to be long and controversial. Image | Andy Dingley Xataka | China’s energy paradox: an ‘electrostate’ that continues to feed on coal

activates 10 new reactors and reinforces its nuclear domain

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The tariff war between the United States and China has not caused the Asian giant to make hasty decisions. On the contrary, the Nation of Xi Jinping continues to work on plans in the very long term, as is the case of the silent boom of oil. In this race towards energy self -sufficiency, the nuclear sector is another of the points where the Asian country is advancing leaps. Short. China has approved the construction of 10 new nuclear reactors, in an investment that exceeds 200 billion yuan (about 26 billion euros), According to The Paper. In this way, China celebrates its fourth consecutive year giving green light to large -scale nuclear initiatives. Renewed impulse. This ambition by the Asian giant in the nuclear ecosystem will be in charge of three state companies: China General Nuclear Power Corp. (CGN), China National Nuclear Corp. (CNNC) and State Power Investment Corp. According to China Dailythe authorities have hardened the control measures to ensure that each new reactor complies with the security standards of the International Atomic Energy Agency (OIEA). State investment. The Chinese strategy is deeply linked to the optimization of construction and operation costs, thanks to the intervention of a state apparatus that facilitates loans with low interest rates, which has proven to be key to the viability of nuclear projects, such as has pointed out The Paper. Face to the future. The forecasts collected by Bloomberg They point out that China’s operational nuclear capacity will reach 110 million kilowatts by 2030, surpassing any other country. If you maintain this rhythm, by 2040 its nuclear park could touch the 200 gigawatts, which would be equivalent to about 10 % of all national energy production. The expansion. The nuclear advance of the Asian country is a strategic play, since in a global context towards cleaner sources, China seeks to position itself as an exporter of nuclear technology, including the own design reactor Hualong One. If this trend was consolidated, the country would be outlined as a geopolitical reference in the new energy order, combining industrial capacity, state financing and energy diplomacy to challenge Western hegemony. Image | Shubert Science and Pexels Xataka | China had never been an important actor in global oil production. That is starting to change

SMR reactors are the great promise of nuclear energy. The United States pilot project has failed

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Fission energy based on small modular reactors (SMR) is the great promise to complement renewables in the energy transition. But the failure of the first pilot project in the United States has highlighted the economic challenges that could stop its development. The advantages of SMR. With nuclear fusion energy in diapers, the promise of a safer, cheap and efficient fission nuclear excites political leaders and technological equally. SMRs have clear benefits regarding conventional fission reactors: they are Compact unitsdesigned to be manufactured in series; Therefore, in theory, they can be transported and assembled rapidly, adapting to different locations to integrate into the electricity grid together with intermittent sources, such as solar panels and wind turbines. The Nuscale case. With their compact size and modular design, SMRs should considerably reduce the cost and construction times of large nuclear reactors. However, reality proved to be more complicated For the first pilot project in the United States. The Nuscale project, developed by the Nuscale Power company for small Utah communities, was canceled at the end of 2023, when it was supposed to be inaugurated, due to its crazy cost overruns. It had been projected in 2015 with 12 reactors capable of generating 600 MW of power for 3,000 million dollars. By 2023, The planned capacity of the plant had been reduced to 462 MW and the estimated project costs had climbed up to 9.3 billion dollars. He became unfeasible. A scale problem. Despite their modular nature and the aspiration to produce them in series, SMRs are an emerging technology that does not have the advantages of the scale economy, as renewables do. A German report He revealed that SMRs remain the most expensive option against renewable technologies, whose costs continue to decrease This already happened with conventional nuclear energy. A 2014 study He revealed that 180 nuclear projects analyzed, 175 had exceeded their initial budget with an average overrun of 117%. The SMR can be expected, at least initially, also raise the cost per megavatio compared to other more settled options. Many interested. Despite these financial challenges,The industry sees potential in SMR. Giants like Google, Microsoft and Amazon They have announced agreements to acquire energy from future projects of modular reactors of companies such as Kairos Power and X-Energy. These investments, driven by the energy consumption of artificial intelligence, could provide the financial impulse that the industry needs to solve long -term economic problems, with the expectation that costs decrease as more projects are built. Image | Nuscale Power In Xataka | Europe does not want to lose the SMR nuclear reactors train. This is your formula to deploy them in 2030

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