A huge power plant complex near Amarillo will supply 11 gigawatts of electricity for AI computing and other data center needs. The complex will consist of four Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power plants, plus small modular reactors (SMRs), plus natural gas burning power plants, plus renewables and batteries.
Fermi America—a company founded by former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry alongside private equity investor and Fermi America’s CEO Toby Neugebauer—first unveiled the mega-project on June 26 as it announced a partnership with Texas Tech University System.
The 5,800-acre campus in the Texas Panhandle, for which Fermi holds a 99-year lease with Texas Tech University, is “strategically situated at the confluence of several of the nation’s largest gas pipelines and located atop one of the nation’s largest known natural gas fields, the site offers a prolific, firm, clean-burning and redundant gas supply,” the company said. “Leveraging the campus’s proximity to Pantex, the nation’s primary nuclear facility that has successfully stewarded the U.S. nuclear arsenal since 1951, underscores Fermi’s strategic position to build clean, safe, new nuclear power for America’s next-generation AI. The site also boasts some of the nation’s fastest premier fiber infrastructure and prime solar resources.”
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Two Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors are currently in service in Georgia, and four others are operating in China (with others being built). Vogtle-4 in Georgia recently entered its first refueling outage, after a successful first fuel cycle run.
My first question is whether this Fermi America company can raise enough money to build this power plant complex. I have a feeling their grandiose plans may eventually need to be scaled back. (But I hope I’m wrong.)
_ Pete