Environmental regulators have reportedly quashed Mark Zuckerberg’s nuclear power plant partnership, intended to power Meta’s ongoing artificial intelligence projects. Details remain scarce, but the main reason for pausing plans reportedly comes down to one problem: rare bees.
The tech company’s setback, first reported on November 4 by Financial timescame after surveyors discovered the currently unspecified pollinators while assessing land intended for a new AI data center. The selected area provided easy access to the nearby, unspecified nuclear power plant. However, Zuckerberg confirmed the cancellation of the project during a Meta meeting last week FT. The company’s CEO added that before the termination, Meta was on track to become the first company to use nuclear power for AI through the largest factory currently available for use in data centers. (Meta did not respond to requests for comment at the time of writing.)
[Related: Massive AI energy demand is bringing Three Mile Island back from the dead.]
Meta and many other tech companies continue to face energy crises thanks to their recent AI investments. Earlier this year, Microsoft confirmed Greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to have increased by 29 percent since 2020 thanks to new data centers specifically “designed and optimized to support AI workloads.” Google has also calculated its own pollution production has increased by as much as 48 percent since 2019, largely due to the energy needs of data centers.
“As we further integrate AI into our products, reducing emissions may become a challenge,” Google researchers wrote in a July sustainability report.
Critics, meanwhile, continue to raise concerns about the staggering energy needs of these often controversial AI projects. For example, a single AI-integrated search query is estimated to require ten times as much energy as a standard Google search. keep one light on for 20 minutes. In response, tech companies have announced multiple plans in recent months that rely on nuclear power. Microsoft is currently aiming to bring the infamous Three Mile Island factory back online for its AI needs Amazon is funneling hundreds of millions of dollars entered into a partnership with the Pennsylvania Nuclear Power Plant in Susquehanna. Google is currently investing in developing modular ‘mini’ nuclear reactors for its own energy needs.
The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission lists 94 operating commercial reactors at 55 nuclear power plants in 28 states that collectively provide about one-fifth of the nation’s energy. Currently, dozens of bee species have been found in the US considered risky or threatenedso it is difficult to determine which species caused the setback of Meta’s project, and where it happened.
Although the specific nuclear power plant remains a mystery, says a Purdue University assistant professor of entomology Brock Harpur believes that the current status of America’s bee species points to some possibilities.
“If it’s in California, there are several protected bumblebees now,” Harpur said Popular science.
California’s only currently operational nuclear facility Diablo Canyon Power Plant in San Luis Obispo County. Considering that the process for approving and building a new nuclear power plant takes years, it’s possible that Meta would have wanted to sue Diablo Canyon’s owners at PG&E if the company hoped to keep up with the AI competition. Diablo Canyon representatives did not respond Popular science at the time of writing. Because the majority of U.S. nuclear power plants are located on the Midwest and East Coasts, Harpur speculated that it is also possible that the rare pollinator in question is the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee, the first one added to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service list of endangered species in 2017.