⚛️Facebook Funds 8 SMRs

Data center energy demand is booming, and Meta (Facebook’s parent company) is chugging electricity like it’s a keg at a frat party.

So Meta is doubling down on BYOP, bring your own power, the newsletter-approved version of BYOB.

On January 9, they announced 6.6 GW of agreements that make them an anchor customer for both existing nuclear power and new nuclear builds in the U.S.

It’s a three part play: keep the existing fleet running with Vistra, then pull forward new reactors with TerraPower and Oklo.

With TerraPower, the deal funds development of 2 Natrium units (sodium-cooled fast reactors) targeting up to 690 MW by 2032, with another 6 units following by 2035.

With Oklo, Meta is kick-starting a nuclear “campus” in Ohio, with prepayments going toward securing fuel and advancing early development. Longer term, the plan is to scale the site to 1,200 MW capacity.

Meta also struck a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Vistra tied to 3 operating nuclear stations, Perry (BWR) and Davis-Besse (PWR) in Ohio, plus Beaver Valley (PWR) in Pennsylvania. The agreement covers 2,176 MW of operating capacity from the Ohio plants, plus 433 MW of uprates across the three sites.

The industry has been stuck in that loop where everyone says they want new reactors, but nobody wants to be first with a real commercial commitment.

Meta just committed. Now let’s see who goes next. If you’re Google, Amazon, or Oracle, you’re watching this and thinking: do we really want to be stuck in the queue while Meta locks in power?

🤑DOE awards $2.7 Billion to Uranium Enrichers

The U.S. DOE just awarded $2.7 billion to restart domestic enrichment and fuel production.

The $2.7B is split into 3 $900 million awards. One goes to Centrus Energy, the U.S. company best known for enrichment and supplying advanced reactor fuel like HALEU. One goes to General Matter, a newer enrichment startup backed by Peter Thiel. The third goes to an Orano subsidiary planning a new enrichment facility in Tennessee.

DOE framed the awards as task orders covering both LEU for today’s fleet and HALEU for the next wave of advanced designs.

There’s a cold reality check baked into this: the U.S. used to be a top supplier of enriched uranium, and now it has one major commercial enrichment facility, Urenco’s plant in New Mexico. That is not the posture you want if you’re serious about energy security.

This is a continuation of the post 2024 shift, when the U.S. passed a ban on Russian reactor fuel imports, with limited waivers allowed until 2028. The waiver clock is ticking.

DOE also awarded $28 million to Global Laser Enrichment, the Silex Systems and Cameco joint venture, to keep pushing next generation enrichment tech.

This is the U.S. rebuilding the nuclear fuel chain in real time, and this time the government is writing real checks.

🇨🇳 World’s First Commercial SMR

China’s SMR program just ticked off one of those milestones that sounds boring, until you realize it’s the dress rehearsal before the main event.

CNNC said the ACP100 project in Hainan, China, passed its non nuclear steam turbine startup test on December 23.

This test is a big deal because it is the conventional island proving it can behave like a power plant before any nuclear fuel gets involved.

In nuclear speak, the plant has two “halves”: the nuclear island is the reactor and safety-critical systems that handle the hot, radioactive coolant, while the conventional island is the normal power plant gear that turns steam into electricity, the turbine, generator, condenser, pumps, the whole kit.

So yes, this is the turbine side doing its dress rehearsal before the reactor asks for a dance.

The ACP100 is a 125 MWe integrated pressurized water reactor. CNNC has been developing it since 2010, and in 2016 it became the first SMR design to pass an IAEA safety review.

If all goes to plan, China is targeting commercial operation in the first half of 2026, putting it on track to become the world’s first operating commercial SMR (land based).

Now let’s see who gets to fleet mode first.

😊Be Like Bill

🏰 World’s Most Expensive Nuclear Bunkers

You know a video is about to be ridiculous when it opens with: “They sold it to me for $1… should we drop a bomb on it?”

MrBeast, yes, the guy with 459 million subscribers on YouTube 🤯, speed runs through nuclear bunker culture. Old Cold War missile sites turned into DIY apocalypse homes, underground luxury condos with grocery stores and pools, and then it ends inside Cheyenne Mountain, the real life final boss of blast doors.

If you’ve ever wondered what the full spectrum of nuclear-ready looks like, this one’s for you:

☢️ Quantum computing with neutral atoms

Welcome back to Atomic Alternatives, where we explore how atoms can do a lot more than generate electricity, including, apparently, computing.

One of the coolest approaches in quantum right now is neutral atom quantum computing.

The idea is almost ridiculously simple: instead of building a computer out of silicon chips, you build it out of individual atoms.

You take regular atoms with no electric charge, trap each one in place using focused laser beams, and use the atom’s different “states” to store information. Each trapped atom becomes a tiny switch, similar to a 0 or 1, except in the quantum world it can behave in ways normal switches can’t.

In a normal computer, bits only interact through wires and transistors. Here, you line up atoms in little grids, then use carefully timed laser pulses to make selected atoms “talk” to their neighbors. When they do, they become linked in a special way, so solving the problem is less like flipping one switch at a time, and more like adjusting a whole pattern at once.

That lets you explore lots of possibilities at the same time instead of brute forcing them one by one.

Today’s computers are great, until the problem is “how do atoms and electrons behave?” Then the math explodes, and you have to take shortcuts. Quantum computers are built for that exact kind of problem.

After spending 60 years making computers smaller, one of the paths forward might be a room full of lasers carefully arranging atoms like a microscopic orchestra. Wild.

😂Meme of The Week

Peace, love, and clean baseload ☮️⚛️

-Fredrik

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