Google is betting on the strength of integration with the growth of greenhouse gas emissions

Google agreed to purchase electricity from the upcoming nuclear power plant, which is the so -called holy cup for clean energy that scientists were chasing More than half a century.

While the integration industry arrived Great teacher A few years ago, technology has not yet been proven whether it could be a technically possible option or commercially applicable. However, the deal Google Declare Today it shows confidence in the possibility of harnessing the nuclear integration to operate its data centers.

The news follows the release of the latest Google Sustainability report Friday, which appears Gase gas emissions continue to climb Despite clean energy obligations. Even in the best scenario, fusion reactions will not be available online in time to help Google meet The goal of reducing emissions by 2030.

“It is a global changing technology in our opinion,” Michael Terrell, President of Advanced Energy at Google, said on Friday with reporters. “Yes, there are some serious challenges in physics and engineering through which we still have to work to make it viable and commercially developed. But this is something we want to invest in now to realize that future.”

Specifically, Google agreed to buy 200 megawatts of “future carbon -free power” from Communious Fusion Systems (CFS), a private company that builds the integration factory in question, which is also an investor. The OffTake Conventions are such a common thing for other electricity sources as a means of financing new projects. What differs here is that the nuclear fusion timetable is more uncertain.

Nuclear fusion Researchers are trying to re -create the way in which the stars are born light and heat. In our sun, the hydrogen nuclei is merged together, creating helium and a huge amount of energy. If someone can know how to do this in a underground control way, it will open an unbearable source that is limited to energy -free energy pollution.

But doing so requires intense heat – More than 100 million degrees Celsius. Thanks to high temperature and pressure requirements, scientists were unable to achieve a net energy gain from fusion interaction Until 2022. And until now, only Lawrence Levermor National Laboratory He was able to do so. (Nuclear power plants generate electricity today by fission – the release of energy by dividing the atoms from each other rather than merged together, a process that leaves behind radioactive waste.)

CFS says technology is finally progressing enough to connect the first power plant in fusion to the electricity network in Virginia by the early 1930s. Virginia is also home to “”Data center“Where technology companies have Designed or expanded facilities To develop new AI tools. Other energy experts freedom I have spoken over the years, however, I think it might take longer decades In order for fusion to become commercially available. CFS currently builds it Experimental plant In Massachusetts.

Google and CFS Not alone in their aspirations. Microsoft ink A. deal In 2023 to purchase electricity from a nuclear merging generator that is developed by Helion Energy, which is supposed to be ready by 2028. Washington Post I mentioned Last week.

Google announced for the first time Initial investment In CFS to support research and development again in 2021. It is now investing the second capital, although companies do not reveal any concrete numbers. Google has also been an investor in another integration company, Tae Technologiesand Since 2015 Although the last deal with CFS is the first Google Convention for Fusion.

In 2021, Google pledge To reduce the pollution of the planet’s heating by 50 percent by the end of the contract compared to the 2019 basic line. Sustainability reportHowever, it indicates that carbon emissions have already degraded more than 50 percent since 2019 as it doubles to artificial intelligence.

The 200 -megawatts deal with CFS is a small part of Google’s carbon -free power purchases. He – she He says More than 170 agreements have signed since 2010 to buy 22,000 MW of clean energy-most of them in wind and solar energy projects that are seen in the near-term more virtuous solutions.