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The boom in AI data centers is demanding more energy from utility companies. In Texas, state leaders are betting nuclear power can become a model for the rest of the country. KUT's Mose Buchele reports.
MOSE BUCHELE, BYLINE: On a recent afternoon, Matt Loszak, CEO of Aalo Atomics, walked me through his company's cavernous Austin manufacturing space, showing off the small nuclear reactors that he hopes will be the future of electricity.
MATT LOSZAK: Right now, we're coming up to the reactor vessel.
BUCHELE: It's a steel cylinder about the size of a small shipping container. Next to it, more metal components, the guts of the reactor.
LOSZAK: So this is where the nuclear fuel would go.
BUCHELE: And to be clear, there's none of that here today. These modular reactors - he calls them microreactors - are in their testing phase. But they are a key part of the built-to-order nuclear power plants that this startup wants to mass produce Henry Ford-style and sell to AI data centers.
LOSZAK: So this is essentially the world's first factory that can output nuclear power plants kind of wholesale.
BUCHELE: And, he says, there's nowhere he'd rather be doing it than in Texas. That's thanks in part to welcoming state policy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GREG ABBOTT: It is time for Texas to lead a nuclear power renaissance in the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
BUCHELE: Early this year, Governor Greg Abbott kicked off the state legislative session with calls to jump-start the nuclear industry. Texas is the only state with its own power grid. Right now, about 10% of the energy on the grid comes from nuclear. But a forecast from the grid operator had found that energy demand could almost double here by 2030, in large part because of all those data centers. Analysts warned if that forecast is even close to accurate, it could pose a threat to energy reliability.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ABBOTT: We must add more power this session to better fortify our grid.
BUCHELE: So lawmakers passed the Texas Nuclear Deployment Act. The law creates a state office to promote the industry and sets aside $350 million for public financing. There could be a lot of competition for that. Commercial small reactor projects are already being planned outside Dallas and along the Gulf Coast. Even former Texas Governor Rick Perry is getting into the act. A company co-founded by Perry recently announced plans for what could become the world's largest nuclear powered AI data center outside of Amarillo.
But not everybody is enthusiastic. Diane Wilson is a fourth-generation shrimper and environmental activist in the Gulf Coast town of Seadrift. When she heard about plans for a nuclear power plant in her town, she was outraged.
DIANE WILSON: Nobody has bothered to talk to people who might have some concerns, like the fishermen.
BUCHELE: She says she's seen too much pollution to want radioactive material used or stored in Seadrift.
WILSON: We are a fishing community. One accident can wipe us out.
BUCHELE: But even putting aside expected local resistance, some say nuclear energy is simply not ready to answer a looming power crunch in Texas and beyond.
DENNIS WAMSTED: I'm not afraid of the technology. I'm afraid of the cost of the technology.
BUCHELE: Dennis Wamsted is an analyst with the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. He says nuclear plants are notorious for cost overruns and construction delays. While those are problems that small modular reactors are supposed to solve, Wamsted points out they have never actually been deployed commercially in the U.S.
WAMSTED: So we don't actually know how long it's going to take. Until you build one or five, you don't know how long it's going to take because, like I said, you haven't built one.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE HISSING)
BUCHELE: Back at the Aalo Atomics facility in Austin, a machine on the shop floor kicks on. CEO Matt Loszak talks about plans to start building a working test reactor in the next 12 months. He's confident his company can build one, and then a lot more, with support from state government and deep-pocketed tech firms.
LOSZAK: The amazingly fortunate thing is, right now, we have that type of demand for the first time, really, since the creation of nuclear energy.
BUCHELE: Actually delivering electricity, that's still years away. But Loszak's betting that demand will still be there when the reactors are ready.
For NPR News, I'm Mose Buchele in Austin.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIA LUNA'S "IF YOU CAN'T VIBE WITH THE PETER CRISS JAZZ, YOU MUST BE DEAD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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