Paul Stenhouse: Amazon's forays into nuclear power and election night broadcasting

Amazon is joining other top tech firms with a foray into nuclear power  

This deal is to explore the development of small modular nuclear reactors. AI needs massive amounts of computing power, and that requires electricity. Virginia's power demand is already growing 5% YOY and is expected to be double 2024’s level in 15 years.  

In addition to that, Amazon is part of a $500 million financing round in a private company opening four small nuclear plants in the West.  

The WSJ called it a "renaissance" of nuclear power. The approach seems to be a little different this time though - with smaller plants rather than large sites. The larger sites run billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule. These companies want to make sure they have the power when they need it.  

  
And, Amazon will now also be delivering election night news  

Their Amazon Prime Video Service will host a live broadcast of the results hosted by former NBC broadcaster Brian Williams. It's the first time the streamer has got into the news game. It says coverage will be an “informative, accessible and non-partisan presentation", which will reference third-party news sources across all political affiliations. Maybe the idea is for Brian Williams will be our guide to all the information being presented? 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Time to catch up with our textbook Paul Stenhouse, who's
will with us this morning with details on how Amazon
has decided to join various other top tech firms with
a fora into nuclear power.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
Paul, it seems to be just what the big tech
companies do now, Jack. If you want to be a
big tech company, you've got to somehow be involved in
the sector. Because they're spending a ton of money to
partner with a company to look at developing what they're
calling small modular nuclear reactors, so basically not massive power plants,

(00:44):
kind of like maybe you have in your head or
what you've seen in the past. But they're trying to
think how to do smaller nuclear reactors, which I can
only guess they will want to try to put close
to their data centers. And it's all because of our
good friend AI. They just need so much computing power
to make AI happen, and that obviously requires bundles of energy.

(01:06):
In Virginia, the state in America where there are a
ton of data centers, it's kind of like where Amazon,
I think, at one of its first big cloud data
centers East One, as it's known. The power demand in Virginia,
it's growing at five percent year over year. They're expecting
that by twenty forty they're going to need double the

(01:27):
amount of energy then right now. So there's quite a problem,
right and so they're not only looking at how to
do this with this one firm, but they're also putting well,
they've gone on a financing round, a half a billion
dollar financing round with a private company who wants to
open four of these same small nuclear reactors on the

(01:47):
West Coast. They're a little further along, but huge amounts
of dollars in there. And the Wall Street Journal kind
of said something interesting. We talked about it a couple
of weeks when we talked about the Microsoft deal. But
there seems to be are innaissance of nuclear power, because
if we want to do the AI thing, we're going
to need a ton of power, and nuclear obviously is

(02:08):
an incredible source of clean energy when it all goes.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, yes, yeah, yeah, and not forgetting that there is
always a bit of nuclear waste as well, but yeah,
I mean that it is amazing. Speaking of Amazon, they're
now going to be delivering Election night news.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yes, so you can get your packages delivered by Amazon,
and now you can turn on the TV and you
can understand what's happening in the election in the United States.
I was surprised about this one because most of these
streamers have really tried to steer clear of news and
all of the kind of you know, commentary that goes
alongside it. But their prime video service is going to

(02:45):
have the former NBC broadcaster of Brian Williams hosting. They
say that the coverage will be informative, accessible, and nonpartisan.
I look forward to seeing how they do it, but
they will. They say they're going to be referencing third
party news sources across all the political affiliations. So I'm
kind of wondering if the way they're going to set
it up as Brian Williams kind of going to be

(03:06):
like a guide or a sherpet to all of this
information that's being presented. He's gonna show us a bit
over here from Fox and a bit over here from MSNBC,
and here is what the New York Times dial is saying.
I don't know, but I can only guess if that's
how they're trying to keep this as non part of
them as possible but interesting.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Yeah, no, it is interesting. It is interesting, and yeah,
the proof of the puddings in the eating. But it
feels like this is the kind of no non partisan
media in America right now. So yeah, thank you very much, Paul.
We will catch you soon. That's our texpert Paul Stenhouse.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
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