Meta buys a nuclear power plant (more or less)

Meta announcement Tuesday morning, he paid billions of dollars to keep an Illinois nuclear power plant until 2047. The social media company will buy all the “clean energy attributes” of the Clinton Clean Energy Center of Constellation Energy, a nuclear power plant of 1.1 Gigawatt in the center of Illinois, from June 2027.

Electricity will always take place towards the local network, so the purchase of Meta will not directly propel one of its data centers, although the company has one to about two hours north of Clinton in Dekalb. The agreement is rather a bit of carbon accounting to reduce the overall impact of the company. It does not reduce emissions on the grid, but prevents them from increasing potentially.

None of the two companies has revealed exact financial conditions, but the agreement of several billion dollars will help revise the factory and guarantee a customer for the duration of this license extension.

Large technological companies – Meta included – have recently become donors from the fissions industry. Before the recent boom to build the data center, nuclear reactors had faced a dark future because the wind, solar and inexpensive natural gas undervalued their power generating costs. But the push of the AI ​​and Cloud Computing sent technological companies looking for energy, which led to a investment chain in nuclear startups.

The meta and the constellation alluded to the agreement as a means of saving the nuclear power plant from the closure, although neither has said that he was at an imminent risk of closure.

The electricity supplier initially planned to close the Clinton reactor in June 2017 Because it faced strong competition from inexpensive natural gas, but Illinois legislators intervened with grants This encouraged the constellation to keep the lights on. These subsidies should expire in 2027, and Constellation indicates that the Meta agreement will help prevent closure.

But since 2017, the constellation has not threatened to close the Corinton power station. Instead, in 2022, the company said It would apply to extend the reactor operating license until 2047.

Techcrunch questioned constellation on his plans for the Clinton power plant before the Meta agreement materializes, and we will update this article if we receive an answer. It is likely that the company has turned to taxpayers, which the constellation indicates in press release: The agreement with Meta “essentially replaces the ZEC [zero-emission credit] Program and provides long -term operations of the factory without taxpayer support. »»

Meta and her great technological peers recently fell for nuclear energy. Meta announced earlier this year that it was Solicit proposals for new nuclear power plants This would generate between 1 and 4 gigawatts of power. Today, the company said it has received more than 50 qualified submissions for sites in more than 20 states.

With the Meta agreement, Constellation won another large technological patron for its nuclear fleet. In September, the electricity supplier said he restart a reactor At Three Mile Island after Microsoft agreed to buy all the resulting power.