Google Inks a Deal to Uprate 11 Nuclear Reactors

Current conditions: A tropical rainstorm in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, likely strengthening into what would become Tropical Storm Isaias, is poised to dump rain on the southeastern United States and may become the Atlantic’s first major hurricane of the year • Italy is bracing for a type of heavy rainstorm known as a nubifragio, set to soak Naples and Rome later this week • The Dome Fire in Yosemite National Park has burned about 7,000 acres, and officials determined it was sparked by humans.

THE TOP FIVE

1. Google inks a deal to uprate 11 of Constellation’s nuclear reactors

If you can’t wait a decade or more for a new Westinghouse AP1000 or one of the small modular reactors under development, your best bet to get more nuclear electricity is probably to upgrade an existing reactor to squeeze more power out of it, a process known as “uprating.” In February, the Department of Energy gave out its largest-ever loan to Southern Company to fund up to 6 gigawatts of uprates across the utility’s nuclear fleet. Last week, Amazon inked a 20-year deal with Constellation, the nation’s largest operator of nuclear reactors, to buy power from and uprate the Calvert Cliffs plant in Maryland. Google has now signed a deal with Constellation aimed at wringing out 890 megawatts of new power from 11 reactors across PJM Interconnection, the nation’s second-largest and arguably most stressed grid system. Asked whether the uprates are a sufficient replacement for building new reactors, Raiford Smith, Google’s head of power and energy for the cloud, said there was plenty of demand to go around. “New data centers are coming on at a gigawatt a clip,” he told me yesterday. “That means even with all the uprates, there’s still more to come.” Software giant Oracle also announced a deal last week to buy $300 million of nuclear power from a NextEra nuclear plant in Wisconsin to help fund its increased fuel costs.

In a sign of progress on the country’s leading SMR design, the Texas grid has officially received an application for one of GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy’s BWRX-300 reactors. The 300-megawatt unit borrows from GE’s decades-long history of building boiling water reactors, and has a leg up on other SMRs given that Ontario Power Generation and the Tennessee Valley Authority, two of the continent’s biggest state-owned utilities, are building the first and second BWRX-300s, respectively. But the application to connect to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ power lines comes, per Bloomberg, from Blue Energy Global, a developer that has promised to build out modular power stations that convert seamlessly from gas to nuclear. While the company considers itself “reactor-agnostic,” it’s first focused on building out plants with the BWRX-300.

2. Indonesia pulls the plug on ‘the world largest deforestation project’

The Indonesian government has halted the clearing of an area of rainforest in Papua roughly the size of Maryland to make way for farmland to grow crops for food and biofuels. In twin announcements at a sustainability forum in Jakarta, Hashim Djojohadikusumo, President Prabowo Subianto’s special envoy for climate and energy, said the government would shift rice and sugarcane projects to degraded land, delivering a victory to both conservationists who sought to preserve vital habitats and carbon sinks and activists who sought to preserve indigenous cultures who depend on the forests. “This decision renews Indonesia’s leadership in showing how to expand agriculture while protecting nature,” Glenn Hurowitz, the founder and chief executive of the advocacy group Mighty Earth, said in a statement. In a post on X, journalist Michael Grunwald, who authored a landmark book about the climate impact of food production, called the news “a massive victory for the planet.”

3. A veteran conservative lawyer at the Interior Department resigned over ‘assault on the rule of law’

For the past 18 years, John Murdock, an attorney and self-described conservative Christian, has served in the legal division at the Department of the Interior. But he resigned abruptly last month over what he called the Trump administration’s “deeply troubling assault on the rule of law.” Under the administration, he wrote in a blistering resignation letter obtained by the investigative site Public Domain, the “all of the above” energy strategy “has seemingly morphed into ‘one of the above,’ solely focused on fossil fuels.” Murdock highlighted “recent decisions to shutter nearly complete offshore wind projects and to pay TotalEnergies hundreds of millions of dollars to renounce wind leases” as examples of “an assault on logic and the American taxpayer.” He added: “We are headed in the wrong direction.

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4. EU gives exporters an extra year to comply with its methane rule

About a week ago, I told you the European Union was considering delaying implementation of its methane rule by a year to avoid jacking up prices on imported gas even higher when exporters inevitably fell short of the bloc’s strict reporting requirements for emissions throughout the fossil fuel supply chain. Well, it’s happened. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers the postponement would save money. Her energy minister, Dan Jørgensen, cautioned that “we do not foresee this to be more than one year,” Reuters reported.

Meanwhile, Dutch researchers at the internet-scanning firm Modat told Reuters that hackers could seize full control of roughly 181 wind and solar sites around Europe and tamper with the administrative systems of thousands more. One wind turbine’s web page showed live data, “start,” “stop,” and “reset” buttons, and the turbine locations. “What we can map in hours, an attacker can map in hours too,” the report said. The researchers encouraged operators to take admin interfaces off the internet immediately.

5. Suzuki undercuts BYD with a new EV using the Chinese automaker’s batteries

Japanese automakers may be notoriously behind China on making electric vehicle batteries. But Suzuki has just released its first electric kei car — that beloved category of ulta-compact Japanese vehicles — using BYD’s batteries but undercutting the Chinese auto giant’s cheapest EV. The new Suzuki e-SKY will beat out BYD’s Racco as Japan’s cheapest mini EV, starting at about $13,500, according to Electrek.

THE KICKER

Bringing out the big guns. Our Energy

The renewables industry is tapping in a WWE champion to make its case. John Cena stars in a new ad series backed by a consortium of wind and solar companies. “How powerful is clean energy?” he asks. “Pretend this is solar,” he says, flexing his right bicep. Flexing the left, he says: “And this is wind.” He then proceeds to obliterate a boulder by punching it into a statue of himself. It’s funny and charming.