HGP Intelligent Energy, a Texas-based energy firm, pitched an innovative plan to revive former U.S. Navy nuclear power plants by renovating these nuclear power plants to support data centers for AI. This proposal has been submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy. It could be a groundbreaking historical event concerning U.S. nuclear power.
The company plans to move two decommissioned military reactors to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee as part of the Genesis Mission project initiated by US President Donald Trump. The two reactors are expected to produce between 450 and 520 megawatts of power exclusively for use in AI data centers.
Although HGP has not specified exactly which reactors they are interested in, it does make sense when one considers that many of the Navy’s submarines are getting older. The USS Nimitz, for example, is the United States’ first nuclear aircraft carrier, built in 1975, and is presently on her last mission before retirement.
Nearly one-third of the Los Angeles-class nuclear attack submarines, built in 1976, that have been actively serving have also retired.
These ships employ proven, mature technology. Nimitz-class aircraft carriers are powered by Westinghouse A4W reactors, and the propulsion plant for the Los Angeles-class submarines is provided by General Electric S8G reactors.
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According to the World Nuclear Association, the fact that the US Navy has been operating more than 100 nuclear reactors for over five decades with not a single incident of radiation-related accidents is a testimony to the reliability of the reactors.
This is especially newsworthy because this would be the first time that the nation’s nuclear reactors have been repurposed for the construction industry. It is virgin territory but may prove to be the game-changer that the industry so rightly needs.
The economics stack up well against other alternatives. HGP has placed a price tag of between $1 million and $4 million on what a megawatt will cost for the project. This could be pricey, but honestly, building a new nuclear power plant or exploring the small modular reactors being investigated by the likes of Amazon, Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, Google, or Nvidia will be far more costly.
“It’s not just savings,” Rudella said. “These reactors would otherwise be sent to the Hanford Site, a DOE facility that stores decommissioned nuclear materials. They’ll have a second life instead of just sitting around and dealing with the enormous issue of disposal of nuclear waste. It took more than ten times as long and more than ten times as much money to dismantle the first nuclear aircraft carrier than it took to decommission the supercarrier ‘Turning Point’.”
“The estimated overall cost to complete the Oak Ridge project ranges between 1.8 and 2.1 billion,” said Del Rioit Ybarra, communications manager at Hilco Green FirstPower, which already has several data center projects in operation in the Republica Latinoamérica.
“We expect to apply to the Energy Department to obtain a loan guarantee to fund this project,” he said.
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Oak Ridge will consist of leased data center space located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. If all goes according to plan, HGP has promised to set up a revenue-sharing agreement with the federal government.
Additionally, they intend to establish a decommissioning fund from the start, which is very important since it is extremely costly to dismantle nuclear power plants once they have reached the end of their life cycles.
This approach comes at a ripe time for America’s energy grid. “Data centers are expected to use 9% of the country’s electricity by 2035 because of the huge increase in processor demand to allow for artificial intelligence processing,” reports Business & Technology.
Some of America’s energy needs, especially power for data centers, are getting very innovative to the extent of repurposing jet engine compressors to provide energy for those facilities.
Gregory Forero, the head of HGP, remains optimistic about this initiative. “We already know how to do this safely and at scale. And we’re quite lucky to have such a good foundation of investors and partners who share the same vision.”
This application has to get approval from DOE in order for it to be implemented. In case it gets approval, it will pave a way on how the U.S. can utilize its energy requirements in a practical manner using existing nuclear resources. This is a wise way of solving a number of contemporary challenges in one stone, such as developing energy for the AI revolution, infrastructure costs, and disposing of military materials.
Whether such a bold experiment will prove successful may have implications for how America faces its future regarding energy policy, along with its nuclear history.
