Google backs push to fast-track nuclear siting for future 600 MW data center

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Elementl Power have adapted ORNL’s OR-SAGE geospatial siting platform to shorten searching for suitable locations for next-generation nuclear plants. The collaboration began under a 2022 Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear (GAIN) voucher, which gives private developers structured access to U.S. national lab expertise.

Elementl’s refined methodology has already underpinned a new agreement with Google: the partners intend to ready three U.S. sites, each capable of hosting at least 600 MW of advanced nuclear capacity. Output from those reactors is expected to feed large-scale data centers, where around-the-clock power availability is critical.

According to Elementl co-founder and chief commercial officer David Faherty, OR-SAGE provides a “data-driven foundation” that lets the company layer its criteria onto dozens of candidate locations “with greater speed and confidence.” The approach is designed to reduce early-stage risk and compress development timelines traditionally stretched for years.

Google supplies early capital for the site-development work and retains an option to take the eventual electricity offtake once a final investment decision is made. Specific reactor technologies have not yet been selected; Elementl will continue assessments covering technology choice, engineering, procurement, construction, and potential project partners while it narrows the candidate list.

The initiative sits within a broader U.S. effort to bring roughly 1.8 GW of advanced nuclear online, much aimed at the energy demands of artificial intelligence infrastructure. For its part, Google already has a separate agreement with Kairos Power for 500 MW of capacity by 2035, anchored by lessons from Kairos’s Hermes low-power demonstration reactor now under construction.