Big Tech’s Sudden Rush Into Nuclear Is A Win-Win For America

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

The U.S. power-generation sector has been hit in recent weeks with story after story about Big Tech firms entering into deals with power providers or developers to satisfy their electricity needs with nuclear generation.

Here are some examples:

—In mid-October, Google said it had entered into an agreement to purchase power for its data center needs from Kairos Power, a developer of small modular reactors (SMRs).

—A couple of weeks earlier, Microsoft and Constellation completed a deal that would involve the restart of Unit 1 at the Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania to power that company’s needs.

—On Dec. 3, Meta issued a request for proposals to nuclear developers to provide up to 4 gigawatts (GW) of electricity to power data centers and AI no later than the early 2030s.

—Perhaps the most extensive development of all came two days after Google’s announcement, when Amazon announced it has entered into deals to support the development of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) with three developers in three different regions of the country.

So, what’s going on here? Aren’t all these Big Tech companies supposed to be totally bought into the climate-alarm narrative, a narrative that claims wind and solar are the only real “clean” energy solutions for power generation? Aren’t we constantly bombarded by boosters of those non-solutions that they are able to reliably provide uninterrupted electricity if backed up by stationary batteries?

Certainly, that has been the case in the past — few corporations could hope to match the volume of virtue signaling about green energy we have seen from these tech companies in recent years. That was all fine until, apparently, the AI revolution came along.

AI is an enormous power hog, one that these and other Big Tech firms must now rapidly adopt to remain competitive.

The trouble with AI and the data centers needed to make it go is that it requires the reliable, constant injection of electricity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days every year. While these Big Tech firms would no doubt love to be able to virtue signal about sourcing their power from wind and solar backed up by enormous banks of batteries, each and every one of them has assessed that option and realized it cannot reliably fill their needs.

Thus, the recent rush to nuclear. After all, once they’ve been built and placed into service, nuclear reactors are a very real zero emissions power source. And unlike wind and solar, nuclear plants do not have to be backed up by an equal amount of generation capacity provided by another fuel, consisting most often of natural gas plants. Nuclear reactors are basically the Energizer Bunnies of power generation: They just keep going and going.

Another big advantage nuclear brings over renewables is the avoidance of the need to invest in massive new transmission networks. This is especially true of SMRs, which can be installed directly adjacent to the contracting data centers. By contrast, wind generation installations must be located in areas where the wind reliably blows. Such areas are often hundreds of miles away from big demand centers, as has been the case in Texas.

Where solar is concerned, the provision of multiple gigawatts (GWs) of generation capacity can require the condemnation of hundreds of acres of land, often thousands. The stationary battery centers for 1 GW of solar or wind would require another large swath of land to be condemned. By contrast, the land footprint for a pair of 500 megawatt (MW) SMRs would amount to no more than a few acres.

Where the deal between Microsoft and Constellation is concerned, sourcing power from an older generation nuclear plant like Three Mile Island will involve interconnecting into an already extant transmission system, though some upgrades and extensions will no doubt be required.

This sudden rush to nuclear by some of the largest companies in the country will benefit all Americans. The massive infusion of capital will accelerate development of SMRs and other advanced nuclear tech, pressure policymakers to modernize antiquated nuclear regulations, and to streamline Byzantine permitting processes that currently inhibit all forms of energy development.

It is a win-win situation for all of us.

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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Bank of Canada governor warns citizens to anticipate lower standard of living

Published on November 1, 2025

Todayville

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

“Unless something changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would be.”

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem gave a grim assessment of the state of the economy, essentially telling Canadians that they should accept a “lower” standard of living.

In an update on Wednesday in which he also lowered Canada’s interest rate to 2.25 percent, Macklem gave the bleak news, which no doubt will hit Canadian families hard.

“What’s most concerning is, unless we change some other things, our standard of living as a country, as Canadians, is going to be lower than it otherwise would have been,” Macklem told reporters.

“Unless something changes, our incomes will be lower than they otherwise would be.”

Macklem said what Canada is going through “is not just a cyclical downturn.”

Asked what he meant by a “cyclical downturn,” Macklem blamed what he said were protectionist measures the United States has put in place such as tariffs, which have made everything more expensive.

“Part of it is structural,” he said, adding, “The U.S. has swerved towards protectionism.”

“It is harder to do business with the United States. That has destroyed some of the capacity in this country. It’s also adding costs.”

Macklem stopped short of saying out loud that a recession is all but inevitable but did say growth is “pretty close to zero” at the moment.

Canadian taxpayers are already dealing with high inflation and high taxes, in part due to the Liberal government overspending and excessive money printing, and even admitting that giving money to Ukraine comes at the “taxpayers’” expense.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Carney boldly proclaimed earlier this week that his Liberal government’s upcoming 2025 budget will include millions more in taxpayer money for “SLGBTQI+ communities” and “gender” equality and “pride” safety.

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) recently blasted the Carney government for spending $13 million on promotional merchandise such as “climate change card games,” “laser pens and flying saucers,” and “Bamboo toothbrushes” since 2022.

Canadians pay some of the highest income and other taxes in the world. As reported by LifeSiteNews, Canadian families spend, on average, 42 percent of their income on taxes, more than food and shelter costs. Inflation in Canada is at a high not seen in decades.

Business

Canada’s economic performance cratered after Ottawa pivoted to the ‘green’ economy

Published on October 31, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Jason Clemens and Jake Fuss

There are ostensibly two approaches to economic growth from a government policy perspective. The first is to create the best environment possible for entrepreneurs, business owners and investors by ensuring effective government that only does what’s needed, maintains competitive taxes and reasonable regulations. It doesn’t try to pick winners and losers but rather introduces policies to create a positive environment for all businesses to succeed.

The alternative is for the government to take an active role in picking winners and losers through taxes, spending and regulations. The idea here is that a government can promote certain companies and industries (as part of a larger “industrial policy”) better than allowing the market—that is, individual entrepreneurs, businesses and investors—to make those decisions.

It’s never purely one or the other but governments tend to generally favour one approach. The Trudeau era represented a marked break from the consensus that existed for more than two decades prior. Trudeau’s Ottawa introduced a series of tax measures, spending initiatives and regulations to actively constrain the traditional energy sector while promoting what the government termed the “green” economy.

The scope and cost of the policies introduced to actively pick winners and losers is hard to imagine given its breadth. Direct spending on the “green” economy by the federal government increased from $600 million the year before Trudeau took office (2014/15) to $23.0 billion last year (2024/25).

Ottawa introduced regulations to make it harder to build traditional energy projects (Bill C-69), banned tankers carrying Canadian oil from the northwest coast of British Columbia (Bill C-48), proposed an emissions cap on the oil and gas sector, cancelled pipeline developments, mandated almost all new vehicles sold in Canada to be zero-emission by 2035, imposed new homebuilding regulations for energy efficiency, changed fuel standards, and the list goes on and on.

Despite the mountain of federal spending and regulations, which were augmented by additional spending and regulations by various provincial governments, the Canadian economy has not been transformed over the last decade, but we have suffered marked economic costs.

Consider the share of the total economy in 2014 linked with the “green” sector, a term used by Statistics Canada in its measurement of economic output, was 3.1 per cent. In 2023, the green economy represented 3.6 per cent of the Canadian economy, not even a full one-percentage point increase despite the spending and regulating.

And Ottawa’s initiatives did not deliver the green jobs promised. From 2014 to 2023, only 68,000 jobs were created in the entire green sector, and the sector now represents less than 2 per cent of total employment.

Canada’s economic performance cratered in line with this new approach to economic growth. Simply put, rather than delivering the promised prosperity, it delivered economic stagnation. Consider that Canadian living standards, as measured by per-person GDP, were lower as of the second quarter of 2025 compared to six years ago. In other words, we’re poorer today than we were six years ago. In contrast, U.S. per-person GDP grew by 11.0 per cent during the same period.

Median wages (midpoint where half of individuals earn more, and half earn less) in every Canadian province are now lower than comparable median wages in every U.S. state. Read that again—our richest provinces now have lower median wages than the poorest U.S. states.

A significant part of the explanation for Canada’s poor performance is the collapse of private business investment. Simply put, businesses didn’t invest much in Canada, particularly when compared to the United States, and this was all pre-Trump tariffs. Canada’s fundamentals and the general business environment were simply not conducive to private-sector investment.

These results stand in stark contrast to the prosperity enjoyed by Canadians during the Chrétien to Harper years when the focus wasn’t on Ottawa picking winners and losers but rather trying to establish the most competitive environment possible to attract and retain entrepreneurs, businesses, investors and high-skilled professionals. The policies that dominated this period are the antithesis of those in place now: balanced budgets, smaller but more effective government spending, lower and competitive taxes, and smart regulations.

As the Carney government prepares to present its first budget to the Canadian people, many questions remain about whether there will be a genuine break from the policies of the Trudeau government or whether it will simply be the same old same old but dressed up in new language and fancy terms. History clearly tells us that when governments try to pick winners and losers, the strategy doesn’t lead to prosperity but rather stagnation. Let’s all hope our new prime minister knows his history and has learned its lessons.