Amazon Vies for Nuclear-Powered Data Center

No zero-emissions is a thing for real pollution that is NOx,SOx, particulates, ,carbon monoxide, mercury,lead,V,Cd ect. Coal plants even with hundreds of millions in scrubbers can never get to zero ppm of those emissions physics dictates that. There is no safe levels of heavy metal emissions. The ash of a coal plant is chemically toxic and never will not be chemically toxic unlike spend nuclear fuel which will decay to levels equal to natural uranium over time.

Nuclear power has zero air emissions they release zero NOx,SOx,PM,CO, or heavy metals. Their “waste” is 96% useable fuel and 4% fission products+TRU the .9% TRU elements is fuel for fast spectrum reactors and the fission products themselves will decay in 300 years to natural uranium levels except for two Tc & Id those can be burnt also in fast spectrum reactors to nothing left.

So no there is an actual zero-emissions ppwer source...nuclear is that source and should be built out in a huge way. One sugar cube sized fuel pellet has the energy of an entire tonne of coal. The amounts of waste for a typical persons lifetime energy consumption would fit inside an 8 ounce soup can. That’s not just electric energy that’s total energy consumption. Adding in 15,000 miles per year of EV driving only barely doubles the volume of “waste” it would fit in a 16oz tallboy beer can. The math is solid for this Google will gladly show you the long math behind it via pdf after pdf of scientific data.

Then realise that 96% of that is still valuable fuel if reprocessed so the actual volume of real waste is only 4% of a 16oz cans worth. That’s how powerful nuclear power is. It’s humanities greatest achievement no other species has unlocked the atom it’s a test at the species level.

They do have a point about two things. One is every megawatt AWS buys directly from the baseload power source with a firm commitment is exactly the same as retiring that megawatt from the overall grid capacity factor. They want to buy it as r wholesale plant gate prices which for nukes can be as low as 1.8 cents per kwh. They also are at the literal plant gate so they use zero of the transmission infrastructure so the grid operator doesn’t get it’s transmission fee per kwh on every kWh transmitted over its grid that’s point two. So these kind of deals remove megawatts from the grid AND also those megawatts that would have flowed through the grid would’ve generated revenue for the grid operator who now has to source energy from another party and charge them the transmission fees.

The obvious solution is make AWS buy in front of the meter power at the going wholesale rates OR they can choose to build their own on-site nuclear reactors that are new capacity and never grid tied or tied only for import/export to the grid all in front of the meter so it’s a level field in the power market. This would force AWS and MS to go SMR or even full sized nukes in a big way since wholesale+ transmission fees is always going to be greater than on-site nuclear reactors it’s the capex of a billion dollar reactor that they want the ratepayers to pay then swoop in and get behind the meter plant gate access after the plant is built or get behind the meter at an existing plant already built out by rate payers that’s the unfair part and should be not legal. Make the big corps pay the capex of their huge energy consumption.

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