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Power-hungry data centers spur United States talks with Big Tech, energy chief Granholm states

President Joe Biden's. administration is asking huge technology business to invest in. new climatefriendly power generation to cover their surging. need, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm informed .

The talks come as a surprising rise in electrical power need. has been driven by the adoption of technologies like generative. expert system that need power-hungry information centers. This development could complicate Biden's target of. decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 to fight climate change.

We've been talking with data companies. The large ones have. commitments to net-zero and wish to see tidy baseload. power, Granholm said in an interview with .

She said the administration had actually talked about the possibility. that companies might band together to make use of small modular. reactors for nuclear energy, and could concurrently put. orders to lower costs.

If the tech companies are coming in and are going to pull. clean power from the grid, they need to bring the power with. them, she stated.

And so a lot of that conversation is occurring today. amongst tech companies and energies, tech business and nuclear. business.

She did not name any of the companies included.

Data centers might use up to 9% of overall electrical energy. created in the U.S. by the end of the decade, more than. doubling their present intake, the Electric Power Research. Institute said in a report last week.

NuScale, the only small modular reactor business with a. license to build from U.S. regulators, needed to cancel its just. project in 2015 at the Energy Department's Idaho National. Laboratory.

Granholm said the NuScale did not have enough. contracts to buy power from the task. That's a lesson: If. you're going to have new nuclear you have to have clear offtake. of the power, Granholm said.

The White House last week announced new steps to spur. development of new U.S. nuclear reactor, a big capacity. source of carbon-free electrical energy the federal government states is required. to combat climate modification. But no new U.S. nuclear plants are. currently being developed.

The youngest U.S. nuclear power reactors, at the Vogtle. plant in Georgia, were years behind schedule and billions over. budget plan when they went into commercial operation in 2023 and 2024.

Granholm said tech companies were likewise looking into other. clean energy innovations, including geothermal.

(source: Reuters)