{"id":370176,"date":"2025-03-15T17:18:34","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T16:18:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=370176"},"modified":"2025-03-15T17:18:36","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T16:18:36","slug":"tech-giants-quietly-drop-renewables-and-sign-pledge-to-triple-nuclear-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=370176","title":{"rendered":"Tech Giants quietly drop renewables and sign pledge to triple Nuclear Power"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From JoNova<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Jo Nova<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n

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ESG Today<\/a>\/<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Renewables are so over<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Just like that \u2014 the renewables bubble went phht.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After twenty years of hailing wind and solar, suddenly the world\u2019s tech giants are cheering for nuclear power.<\/a> Worse \u2014  they don\u2019t even mention the words carbon, low emissions or CO2. The new buzzwords are \u201csafe, clean and firm<\/em>\u201c. They talk about needing energy \u201cround the clock\u201d, and they talk about \u201cenergy resilience\u201d \u2014 but they don\u2019t say<\/em> nuclear is \u201clow emissions\u201d. It\u2019s like they want everyone to forget their activism. Did someone say something about climate change?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meta, Amazon, and Google have flipped like a school of barracuda. Five minutes ago, life on Earth depended on achieving Net-Zero with fleets of wind farms in the sunset<\/a>, now, they just want energy and lots of it. The big tech fish and their friends have signed a Large Energy Users Pledge<\/a> admitting that the demand for energy is rising rapidly, that nuclear should triple by 2050 and that large energy users depend on the availability of abundant cheap energy (Small energy users too,  Mr Bezos-Zuckerburg-Pichai.) The closest they come to hinting at the ghost of renewables is when they say they want energy that\u2019s not dependent on \u201cthe weather, the season, or the geographical location\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no \u201cSorry we got it wrong\u201d. There\u2019s no apology for hectoring us, censoring us, or wasting billions of dollars. It\u2019s just Mr Don\u2019t-Look-Over-Here telling us what most engineers knew for 30 years. This is the billionaire club asking the taxpayers to build them more nuclear plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Signatories include Siemens Energy<\/a>, which suffered a 36% share price fall 18 months ago<\/a> when it admitted it was losing billions trying to maintain wind turbines<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s the perfect storm. Just as renewable investments wallow in their failures, the AI race is escalating, and it needs monster data, which means monster energy. As\u00a0we saw in Texas the new grid entrants<\/a>\u00a0are asking for a whole gigawatt of capacity each, and peak demand is expected to rise by a wild 75% in the next five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Less than a year ago Microsoft<\/em> was making the \u201cbiggest ever renewable energy agreement\u201d<\/a> but now it\u2019s  resurrecting the old Three Mile Islan<\/a>d nuclear plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And of course, Donald Trump is in the WhiteHouse, so the subsidies are gone and the mood has changed. Indeed, it\u2019s almost like the Tech Giants are afraid to mention \u201cclimate change\u201d too much lest it annoy the new President or remind all their shareholders how much money they wasted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other governments need to adjust their policies at speed. Run, don\u2019t walk\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old Google:<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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Aiming to Achieve Net-Zero Emissions – Google Sustainability<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

h\/t Reader<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click to see the signatories or read the Large Energy Users Pledge:<\/p>\n\n\n

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