Amazon Web Services hopes to find a principal nuclear engineer to help with data center power solutions.
After purchasing a data center campus in Pennsylvania in March, Amazon is looking for an engineer to handle “small modular nuclear power plants” and build “internal and external nuclear product and fuel strategy road maps.”
The job listing also mentions working with external partners to influence the design of “efficient and safe” modular power plants and deliver carbon-free power generation solutions. This could mean that Amazon may be looking to develop its own reactors for commercial sale.
As reported by Data Center Dynamics, Amazon spent $650 million to acquire Talen Energy’s campus next to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.
‘This is how crazy it’s getting.’
AWS will develop 15 data centers at the location as part of a 1,600-acre rezoning projection.
As Amazon looks to prop up its data centers for the ever-growing needs of artificial intelligence operations, it joins other monumental contracts from companies looking to directly source power with nuclear energy. The energy source, which has acted as a bogeyman for green energy activists, has suddenly become fashionable for multinational corporations in 2024.
Major purchases have started a snowball effect for the private sector, which will sadly have no effect on lowering energy costs for the common homeowner if the power plants exist solely for the companies’ consumption.
This is the case for Microsoft’s latest 20-year, 835-megawatt deal with Constellation Energy, which will reactivate a reactor at the infamous Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania.
Coming online in 2028, Constellation will spend a reported $1.6 billion to open the figurative doors while hoping to keep the plant running until 2054.
Other deals include internet connectivity and data company Equinix signing a 500-megawatt agreement with Oklo in April.
Oklo also agreed to build a small modular reactor for data company Prometheus Hyperscale in May, providing 100 megawatts.
The nuclear fission startup plans to open microreactors, but the locations are not known yet. It is also working with Diamondback Energy in Texas.
At the same time, Constellation obtained rezoning approval in Illinois in August for 524 acres near the Byron nuclear power plant. The company has since struck a deal to power 54 local business offices.
Lastly, computer technology company Oracle announced in early September that it would be building a 1-gigawatt data center campus powered by three small modular reactors.
“These are the small modular nuclear reactors — to power the data center,” founder Larry Ellison said. “This is how crazy it’s getting.”
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