The WaPo headline is "Rick Perry’s AI plan: A colossal nuclear campus in Trump’s image" which, on first encounter I took to mean the campus was going to resemble President Trump's profile in silhouette. Now that would be weird. And would probably get federal funding.
From the Washington Post, June 26:
There are few proposals in the United States for new, full-size nuclear power plants, which are associated with cost overruns and long engineering delays. Many tech and energy companies are focusing their efforts on developing smaller, modular reactors that in theory can be built faster and more cheaply.
Fermi Executive Chairman Toby Neugebauer, a Texas private equity investor, said he’s confident the firm can build the nuclear complex by 2032, an extremely ambitious timeline. He argues that its remote Texas Panhandle location will speed permitting and construction.
“If you can’t do it here, you can’t do it anywhere,” he said in an interview Thursday.
The complex will also include large natural gas plants, with pipelines in the area supplying so much of the fuel that company officials say they can eventually supply AI companies with 11 gigawatts of energy — an amount equivalent to that used by all of Manhattan — on gas alone, if the nuclear plans falter.
Crucial details of Fermi’s plans remain unclear, including the specific financial backing Perry and his partners have secured, making its viability difficult to judge at this early stage. Fermi is partnering with the Texas Tech University system on the project, and the company’s founders include Perry’s son, Griffin, an investor who also sits on the board of the Cotton Bowl Athletic Association, sponsor of the annual college football game. The company says its roster of executives will include experts who have helped finance and build large power projects around the world, including nuclear plants.
Fermi America social media postings frame the unusual project as an homage to Trump, who named Perry energy secretary during his first term and who is taking steps to weaken the independence of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and give the White House more sway over nuclear energy approvals.
“It’s time we lead the charge to Make America Nuclear Again,” says a post on Fermi’s LinkedIn page, complemented with video of Trump turning his head stoically toward the camera. The White House did not respond to questions about the plan.
Fermi said it has not decided on a final name for the site, notwithstanding its use of the Trump moniker in its regulatory filings. The company says that it hopes to start construction on the nuclear plant next year and that it will have a large amount of gas power available for data centers on its campus by 2026.
The effort is among a variety of gargantuan data-center projects that are on the drawing board or being built in the U.S.
Fermi on its website features a quote from Perry promising a Texas-scale operation: “At Fermi America, we’re really not interested in building the second largest energy driven data center in the world, we’re gonna build the largest.”
Officials at the NRC confirmed the authenticity of Fermi’s licensing application, which they said will be posted publicly in the near future.
Fermi’s June 17 cover letter to the NRC says the company is seeking an expedited approval process, filing the application in phases “rather than to wait for all the information that may be ultimately required to come in.”
The application says each of the Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors also will be named individually after the current White House occupant. Most experts say building a nuclear plant of the size Fermi is proposing could take roughly a decade....
....MUCH MORE
Probably not related, June 27 - "Trump plans executive orders to power AI growth in race with China" (PWR; GEV; CCJ)
