A year ago, artificial intelligence didn’t even get a mention as TerraPower was working to develop its novel nuclear plant in Kemmerer, the first of its kind in the nation.
But AI is definitely in the driver’s seat now.
TerraPower, founded by Bill Gates, has inked a deal with Sabey Data Centers to investigate how its nuclear power plants might help power Sabey’s growth plans.
“Sabey is definitely a big data center provider,” TerraPower Director of External Affairs Jeff Navin told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday morning. “They might not be the household name that Amazon is, but they’re the largest independent data center provider in the country.
“So, we’re excited to have the partnership, and hopefully it will allow us to continue our growth in the Rocky Mountain West and in Wyoming.”
TerraPower still has an active memorandum of understanding with Rocky Mountain Power to analyze the potential for more nuclear power plants at other coal plant sites where RMP has already announced closures.
Data centers could be one way to help drive those deals and make them happen, Navin said.
“The increased demand from data centers, I think, can help drive some of those conversations,” he said. “Wyoming is a very attractive place to produce energy, and I think it’s also an attractive place for data centers. So, I think the future is very bright for Wyoming in that regard.”
AI Eats Power Like Cookie Monster Gobbles Cookies
The rise of AI is expected to drive U.S. electricity demands through the roof. That’s because they eat power the same way cookie monster gobbles up cookies.
A simple ChatGPT query, for example, needs nearly 10 times the electricity of a regular Google search. Multiply that out over all the different tasks AI is expected to do, and it’s clear that power needs are about to rise exponentially.
Goldman Sachs analysts, for example, have predicted a 160% increase in data center power demand alone, reaching 200 terawatt hours per year sometime between now and 2030.
TerraPower, meanwhile, estimates that U.S. electricity demand as a whole will reach 323 terawatt hours by 2030.
That contrasts with the relatively stable demand from data centers of the past decade, whose power needs have remained mostly flat — despite workloads tripling — thanks to efficiency gains.
Those gains, however, have leveled off, Goldman Sachs analysts said in a report unpacking the potential for AI investment. That means huge investments are needed for new power sources — around $50 billion in new generation capacity.
That in turn will drive around 3.3 billion cubic feet per day of new natural gas, as well as new pipeline capacity, according to Goldman Sachs’ predictions.
While it is going to take more natural gas in the overall scheme of things, AI companies also expect to leverage large amounts of power from renewable sources of energy, as well as emerging nuclear power generation.
It’s going to take an all-of-the-above strategy to meet the energy demands they foresee.
Data Center Among Kemmerer’s Economic Goals
Kemmerer city officials have long been hoping to attract the interest of a data center and even have that listed as a goal in their “2020 Kemmerer, Retention, Expansion and Diversification Plan.”
City Administrator Brian Muir told Cowboy State Daily the city is excited about the announcement TerraPower has made with regard to Sabey, seeing it as potentially one step closer to that goals.
“Having a data center here would create additional jobs, not only at the data center, but could potentially mean additional jobs in the nuclear industry,” Muir said. “We would welcome someday having another nuclear plant here in Kemmerer, which is a real possibility.”
Whether Sabey builds a data center in Kemmerer is yet to be determined, Navin told Cowboy State Daily.
“We’re still in the dating phase with Sabey,” he said. “And part of what we’re doing with that is a deeper dive into what their energy needs are, and they’re doing a deeper dive into what we can provide.”
During this phase, Sabey will work to better understand how TerraPower could fit into that future growth plans, while TerraPower will explore how it could integrate its systems with Sabey’s data centers.
“It’s not a marriage yet,” Navin said. “Our agreement with Sabey is not about a specific site at this moment. It’s about looking across the board, at places where we might be able to collaborate together.”
Power from the Natrium plant in Kemmerer could travel anywhere in the region, Navin added. That could mean Utah or Cheyenne as easily as Kemmerer, since the plant will have access to Rocky Mountain Power’s transmission line.
That portability is a super power that Navin suggested will undoubtedly lead to more opportunities for Wyoming.
“Just as we’re seeing with the Meta data centers around Cheyenne, (AI companies) are looking for places that have good internet connective and access to reliable low-cost power,” he said. “So that’s Wyoming. There’s no reason Wyoming can’t benefit from this growth in AI.”
That’s all the more so, given that increased AI demand will likely help drive TerraPower’s continued growth in the Rocky Mountain West.
“We weren’t even talking about (AI) 12 months ago, but now it’s really driving all of the planning around energy,” he said. “So, I would say buckle up, and stay tuned.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
