Google announced the next step in its nuclear energy plans 

Google is one more step towards its nuclear ambitions now that it works with Public Power Utility Tennessee Valley Authority (VAT) to buy electricity from a new generation reactor. This is the first power purchase agreement for technology that argued that an American public service has made companies, according to companies.

The plan is for VAT to buy electricity from a reactor developed by the engineering company Kairos Power in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Once the reactor is operational, expected in 2030, it should start providing electricity to the local network which serves Google data centers in Tennessee and Alabama.

If they manage to remove everything, it could help revive a whole new era for nuclear energy in the United States. The current fleet of country nuclear reactors uses decades technology that has struggled to compete with cheap electricity in gas power plants and solar and wind parks. Kairos Power built one of the first reactors that Hope supporters can inaugurate a resurgence of nuclear energy and meet the growing demand for electricity of large technologies and AI.

Oak Ridge, Tennessee – where Kairos built Hermes 2 – was once the headquarters of the Manhattan project. Now, instead of accommodating the installations enriching uranium for the first atomic bombs, Oak Ridge has become a center for nuclear energy projects and research.

Finally, Google aims to help Kairos deploy 500 megawatts of new nuclear capacities in the United States by 2035. For the context, the 94 US operational nuclear reactors had a combined capacity of 97,000 MW in 2024 and represented a little less than 20% of the American electric combination. Hermes 2 is supposed to reach a capacity of 50 MW.

Companies that generate electricity without carbon pollution, such as nuclear energy and renewable energies, can earn money by selling the electricity they provide to the electricity network And By selling so -called clean energy attributes that resemble distinct certificates representing the environmental advantages of avoidance of fossil fuel emissions. Google will receive clean energy attributes from the Hermes 2 factory via VAT.

Technological companies with climatic objectives often buy clean energy attributes to try to cancel pollution caused by their electricity consumption. By matching its electricity consumption with these certificates, a company could claim that it works on clean energy even if it is connected to an electrical network that still works on dirty energy. The additional income of clean energy attributes is supposed to help developers add more power without carbon pollution to the network (although research has shown that environmental benefits are often overestimated). Google’s carbon emissions increased again last year when it increases its AI offers.