As we have been writing about for the better part of the last 2 years, growing electricity needs from artificial-intelligence data centers are pushing tech giants back toward nuclear power.
On Monday, NextEra Energy and Google announced a deal to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which closed in 2020 after 45 years of operation. The 615-megawatt plant is expected to return to service in early 2029 under a 25-year power purchase agreement with Google, Reuters reported.
Shares of NextEra rose more than 1% after the announcement. The move adds to recent nuclear-supply arrangements tied to hyperscale cloud operators, echoing plans at the former Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania aimed at Microsoft data centers. As we have written about extensively on Liberty Ledger, companies including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have also signed agreements to buy future energy from advanced nuclear projects such as small modular reactors and fusion systems.
Reuters writes that NextEra and Google said they will also explore new nuclear technologies. CEO John Ketchum noted, “Restarting Duane Arnold marks an important milestone for NextEra Energy,” adding, “Our partnership with Google not only brings nuclear energy back to Iowa — it also accelerates the development of next-generation nuclear technology.”
Ruth Porat, Alphabet and Google’s president and CIO, said, “This partnership serves as a model for the investments needed across the country to build energy capacity and deliver reliable, clean power, while protecting affordability and creating jobs that will drive the AI-driven economy.”
NextEra will acquire the 30% stake previously held by Central Iowa Power Cooperative and Corn Belt Power Cooperative, taking full ownership. Central Iowa Power Cooperative will continue purchasing its share of output under the same terms as Google.
While three nuclear restart efforts are underway in the U.S., no previously shut down plant has yet come back online.
Nuclear names soared on Tuesday morning after Cameco and the Trump admin announced an $80 billion deal with Westinghouse Electric (Cameco owns 49%) to build nuclear reactors, the latest push to meet rising demand for electricity from artificial intelligence.
The strategic partnership, which also involves Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, aims to deliver on President Trump’s AI ambitions and scale up an industry he sees as vital to competing with China. It will create tens of thousands of jobs, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday.
CCJ announced that the company and Brookfield Asset Management have entered into a partnership with the US Government to accelerate the deployment of Westinghouse’s reactor technology across the US. The $80bn commitment is expected to include near-term financing of long lead time items. In a note from Goldman’s research team (which turned bullish on the name about a year ago, and roughly 3 years after us) wrote that they “view this partnership as a significant step forward in reinvigorating nuclear supply chains to accelerate deployment of nuclear power deployment in the United States. We reiterate our Buy rating and highlight key takeaways within.“
According to the release, each two-unit Westinghouse AP1000 project creates or sustains 45,000 manufacturing and engineering jobs in 43 states, and a national deployment will create more than 100,000 construction jobs, the companies said. In short, this is a huge win-win deal for everyone (except a handful of environmental radicals).
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