The owners of roughly a third of U.S. nuclear-power plants are in talks with tech companies to provide electricity to new data centers needed to meet the demands of an artificial-intelligence boom.  Among them, Amazon Web Services is nearing a deal for electricity supplied directly from a nuclear plant on the East Coast with Constellation Energy, the largest owner of U.S. nuclear-power plants, according to people familiar with the matter. In a separate deal in March, the Amazon.com subsidiary purchased a nuclear-powered data center in Pennsylvania for $650 million…

Instead of adding new green energy to meet their soaring power needs, tech companies would be effectively diverting existing electricity resources. That could raise prices for other customers and hold back emission-cutting goals…The nuclear-tech marriage is fueling tensions over economic development, grid reliability, cost and climate goals in states including Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Amazon’s deal in Pennsylvania set off alarm bells for Patrick Cicero, the state’s consumer advocate. Cicero said he is concerned about cost and reliability if “massive consumers of energy kind of get first dibs.” It is unclear if the state currently has the regulatory authority to intervene in such deals, he said. “Never before could anyone say to a nuclear-power plant, we’ll take all the energy you can give us,” said Cicero.

Excerpts from Jennifer Hiller, Tech Industry Wants to Lock Up Nuclear Power for AI, WSJ, July 1, 2024