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| | Good Monday morning. | Before markets fully find their rhythm this week, it's worth looking at a shift unfolding far from stock charts — inside Google's energy strategy. | Google has begun speaking plainly about a constraint most technology executives once treated as a back-office concern: electricity. In its 2025 environmental report, published in June, the company disclosed that emissions rose 51% from 2019 baseline levels, driven largely by data center expansion. More telling than the figure itself was the explanation. Google acknowledged that achieving 24/7 carbon-free energy by 2030 faces a "slower-than-necessary deployment of large-scale carbon-free energy technologies". That language marked a quiet pivot from aspirational sustainability messaging to operational reality. It is becoming a structural bottleneck for artificial intelligence infrastructure. | The timing is not coincidental. AI model training and inference impose sustained, high-utilization demands that differ sharply from traditional computing workloads. | Legacy data centers average 20–30% utilization.
AI workloads run at 70–85% utilization, continuously — creating baseload requirements that intermittent power cannot reliably meet. | | | | What Google Actually Said This Year | Google's public statements in 2025 have shifted from celebrating renewable procurement milestones to grappling with grid integration challenges. The company signed contracts for more than 8 gigawatts of clean energy in 2024, a record. Yet in the same report, it noted an 11% year-over-year increase in overall emissions and a 22% rise in supply chain emissions. The contradiction reflects a deeper problem: renewable capacity additions do not automatically translate into dispatchable power for AI workloads. | In October, Google and NextEra Energy announced a 25-year power purchase agreement to restart the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa, which had been shuttered in 2020. The 615-megawatt facility is expected back online by early 2029. | In August, Google finalized the world's first corporate agreement for advanced nuclear power, a 500-megawatt partnership with Kairos Power to deploy small modular reactors in Tennessee. In June, the company signed a 200-megawatt fusion power purchase agreement with Commonwealth Fusion Systems for a plant that does not yet exist and will not deliver power until the early 2030s, if technical milestones are met. In November, Google partnered with Westinghouse to integrate AI tools into nuclear plant construction and operations, aiming to cut timelines for reactor deployment. | These are not pilot projects or philanthropic gestures. They are commercial contracts designed to secure firm, carbon-free electricity at scale. | The Problem of Baseload for AI | The technical distinction between intermittent and firm power has moved from utility planning documents to boardroom agendas. Solar and wind generation, despite rapid cost declines and deployment growth, produce electricity only when weather conditions allow. Battery storage can smooth hourly or daily fluctuations, but current lithium-ion systems remain too expensive and too limited in duration to provide multi-day or seasonal backup for gigawatt-scale data centers. | | | | AI training runs can last weeks or months at maximum GPU utilization. Inference workloads require sub-second response times around the clock. Interruptions are not merely inconvenient; they undermine the commercial viability of the service. Regional grid operators have begun flagging the strain. Virginia's data center corridor already consumes more than 25% of the state's electricity supply. Interconnection queues have lengthened, with grid connection delays now often exceeding construction timelines for new facilities. | | Why Nuclear Is Reappearing in Tech Strategy | Nuclear power offers attributes that align with AI infrastructure needs: high capacity factors, minimal land footprint, and dispatchability independent of weather. Small modular reactors, though still in development, promise factory fabrication, shorter construction timelines, and modularity that allows incremental capacity additions. Google's investment in both existing reactor restarts and next-generation SMR development reflects a portfolio approach—balancing near-term capacity needs with longer-term bets on emerging technologies. | Other hyperscalers have followed similar paths. Microsoft signed a 20-year agreement to restart Unit 1 at Three Mile Island. Amazon committed to 1.9 gigawatts from Talen Energy's Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. Meta secured a 20-year nuclear power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy in Illinois. These deals are not altruistic climate commitments. They are strategic moves to lock in reliable power before competitors do. |
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| |  | 33,000% Energy Boom Rising From a Dying Coal Town? |
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| What This Means for Energy Infrastructure and Capital | The convergence of AI expansion and firm power scarcity is reshaping capital flows. NextEra Energy has set a target to build 15 gigawatts of new power generation for data center hubs by 2035, with potential to reach 30 gigawatts. U.S. utilities have publicly committed to supplying 64 gigawatts of new data center capacity, equivalent to a 12% increase in current national electricity demand. The Department of Energy has allocated over $36.9 billion in public and private investments to grid resilience and transmission expansion. | This is not a technology story masquerading as an energy story. It is an energy story that happens to be driven by technology demand. The buildout of AI infrastructure—sometimes termed "Freedom Factories" in policy discussions around domestic technology and industrial capacity—requires not just chips and fiber, but gigawatts of dependable electricity that the grid cannot yet deliver at the necessary pace or scale. |
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|  | | | Presented by Brownstone Research | |
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| A Transition in the Energy Narrative | Energy decisions are quietly becoming central to technological and economic strategy in ways that would have seemed implausible a decade ago. Google's shift from renewable energy procurement to nuclear partnerships is less a reversal than a maturation. Sustainability goals remain, but they now coexist with operational imperatives that renewables alone cannot satisfy. | For investors, policymakers, and corporate strategists tracking long-term capital deployment, the lesson is straightforward: the companies best positioned to scale AI will be those that secure firm, dispatchable power first. Understanding energy infrastructure is no longer optional context for technology analysis. It is foundational. |
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| How did you find today's briefing? | |
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| | Written by Deniss Slinkins
Global Financial Journal |
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