"Last fall, the house of Bezos announced a $500 million investment in SMR startup X-Energy. On Thursday, the e-tailer revealed that X-Energy's Xe-100 SMR designs would eventually supply Washington State with "up to" 960 megawatts of clean energy. "Eventually" is the key word here as construction isn't expected to start until the end of the decade and the plants won't begin operations until sometime in the 2030s."
"Amazon notes that X-Energy's SMRs should be smaller, faster to deploy, and cheaper to operate than conventional pressurized water reactors. This is a common argument in support of the miniaturized nuclear power plants, but it's worth noting that the tech hasn't actually been proven out. In fact, higher-than-expected operating costs have already doomed one early SMR project. And that's not the only challenge facing X-Energy."
Amazon invested $500 million in X-Energy and plans to deploy Xe-100 small modular reactors at the Cascade Nuclear Energy Center near Richland, Washington, in three phases totaling up to 960 megawatts. Construction is not expected until the end of the decade and operations are anticipated in the 2030s. Amazon aims to deploy 5 gigawatts of X-Energy SMRs by 2039 and has enlisted Doosan Enerbility and Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power for deployment support. X-Energy's technology has not yet received Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval and early SMR projects have faced higher-than-expected operating costs.
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