The AI Power Race Favors States That Already Have Nuclear Plants

Google needs more electricity for its data centers, and on Tuesday it found 890 megawatts without pouring a single new foundation. Under a 20-year agreement with Constellation Energy, Google will buy the added output from upgrades at 11 existing reactors in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, giving Constellation the certainty to invest more than $4.3 billion. The new capacity roughly equals one large new reactor, and it lands on PJM Interconnection, the grid that serves 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C.

Colorado tells the other half of the story. Comanche 3, Xcel Energy’s largest coal unit in the state, returned to service only last month after a turbine failure kept it dark for 13 months. To cover the gap, regulators kept the 50-year-old Comanche 2 unit at the same site running past its scheduled retirement, and Xcel bought power from other utilities. And Colorado has no reactor to upgrade. Its only nuclear plant, Fort St. Vrain, shut down in 1989.

The two examples illustrate the divide. Firm power, meaning electricity available around the clock regardless of weather, is becoming a geographic asset. States with nuclear fleets can stretch them, increasingly with tech companies paying the bill. States without them must wait for small modular reactors that are not yet running anywhere in the U.S., bet on newer carbon-free options such as advanced geothermal, or fall back on fossil fuels: aging coal plants kept alive past retirement and more natural gas. As AI demand and coal retirements converge, that split will shape where data centers, factories, and capital go.

The goal should be to steer that capital toward carbon-free power: wind and solar for volume and to meet escalating demand, and nuclear for the steady output that keeps a renewables-heavy grid reliable.

The Fastest Megawatt Is One You Already Own

The Other Side of the Map

Until then, Colorado is leaning on coal it had planned to retire.