Over the last couple of years, AI hyperscalers like Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have all been investing in both extending existing nuclear facilities and expanding new nuclear generation, presumably to support the data center growth that makes their businesses possible. Last year, a cross-industry group of large energy users (including Google, Amazon, and Meta) signed a pledge with the World Nuclear Association to support tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050. To date, 38 countries across the world have also signed onto this pledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meeting this goal will be a challenge to the whole industry. Countries will need to create a nuclear infrastructure strategy that includes all parts of the industry – existing plants, restarting retired facilities, current and future SMRs projects, etc. But none of this can happen without safe and efficient maintenance solutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Existing Nuclear Stations <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Existing nuclear stations already produce large amounts of dependable electricity. The industry will need to protect these assets through effective maintenance and well-executed outages. Some sites may even be able to accommodate additional generation with additional investment. Safety equipment, plugs, seals, covers, and lifting devices will become an even more integral part of the continuation and growth of current nuclear power generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Retired Nuclear Plants<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Restarting select retired or permanently shut-down nuclear plants could also help close the gap in capacity. Facilities that retain usable infrastructure may be able to return power to the grid sooner than new projects. However, a restart requires careful evaluation of systems and components, as well as developing new maintenance programs and testing safety equipment. Equipment like platforms and stairs, sealing, shielding, and lifting solutions can support this work by helping maintenance teams safely inspect, repair, and recommission equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SMRs and new technologies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n SMRs and new nuclear technologies will not only add more power capacity, but they could provide greater flexibility in where and how that capacity is deployed. Their modular approach may enable installation closer to the place of usage and can add capacity incrementally as demand grows. That said, even brand-new SMRs will still need effective maintenance and outages solutions like platforms and stairs, sealing and shielding solutions, equipment handling, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Count on our experts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Preferred Engineering has decades of experience to support the industry in meeting the goal of tripling capacity. AI may be accelerating the industry, but proper, safe and efficient maintenance will always be required to deliver the energy capacity that the AI era demands.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the last couple of years, AI hyperscalers like Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have all been investing in both extending existing nuclear facilities and expanding new nuclear generation, presumably to support the data center growth that makes their businesses possible. Last year, a cross-industry group of large energy users (including Google, Amazon, and Meta) signed a pledge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3547,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,43,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3549,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions\/3549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thepyroscope.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}