Facebook will use nuclear energy: 20 -year agreement with Constellation for the plant in Illinois
Meta will invest billions of dollars to keep the Clinton Clean Energy Center reactor, which should have closed. Microsoft, Google and Amazon also focus on the atom for the energy consumption of artificial intelligence
Facebook also joins the Big Tech club that rely on nuclear power to satisfy their growing energy consumption, in particular for the development of artificial intelligence. The Mother House Meta signed a twenty -year agreement with Constellation, a large energy producer who has renewables and atom among the source. Meta’s investment – whose amount has not been disclosed – will serve to expand the production of the Climin Energy Center of Constellationwhich should have closed in 2017 after years of financial losses, but was saved by an Illinois law with a zero -emission credits.
The relaunch of the plant
The Meta-Contellation agreement will come into force in June 2027, when the public program expires. With the arrival of Meta, Clinton’s clean energy production will increase by 30 megawatts, preserving 1,100 local jobs and generating 13.5 million dollars of annual tax revenuesaccording to what is explained by the two companies. « Guaranteeing a clean and reliable energy is necessary to continue carrying out our ambitions in the field of artificial intelligence, » said Urvi Parekh, a global manager for the energy of Meta. After the news, Costellation shares went up 6.5% on Wall Street, but then reduced the rally on the stock exchange.
Billions of dollars
If the financial agreements between the parties have not been disclosed, Joe Dominguez, CEO of Constellation, has in any case declared that « the agreement with Meta will contribute to covering the costs of renewing the license, updates and maintenance of the Clinton Clean Energy Center. These are billions of dollars of capital that are signed to make a plant work for another 20 years», He added.
The agreement between Meta and Constellation, announced on June 3, is only the last of the big tech. Also other large technological companies that are building huge data centers to train their IA models are organizing to grab nuclear energy. Constellation, owner too
of the closed nuclear power plant of Three Mile Islandin Pennsylvania, who had an accident in 1979, In September he made a 20 -year agreement with Microsoft And for this purpose it will restore unity 1 of the control unit. Always last autumn, Amazon has announced that he wants to invest in small nuclear reactors, two days after a similar announcement of Googlewho announced that he would hit in three advanced nuclear energy projects with Elementl Power.
