960 megawatts. That is the proposed size of a plant of 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors that Amazon will fund on a former coal site south of Terre Haute, Indiana, TechCrunch reported on 19 October.
X-energy designs the reactors and American Electric Power would operate the plant. Amazon funds development and would be the first customer. The power would feed the public grid, and Amazon says it would also serve its data centres.
The companies plan 5 gigawatts of new US nuclear capacity by 2039. There is no dollar figure for this deal, no construction or completion date for Indiana, and no word on whether it has a permit. Amazon led a $700 million X-energy round in October 2024.
The plan leans on Seadrift, Texas. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s review of X-energy’s construction permit there is in its final phases, but the company has not broken ground. Texas has sued Dow Chemical, which hosts the site, alleging repeated water and solid-waste violations.
Experts say mass manufacturing of reactors often takes about a decade to deliver cost and schedule benefits. X-energy listed on Nasdaq in April, and its shares have fallen nearly two-thirds since, though they rose about 10 percent in premarket trading on the news.
TechCrunch calls the 2039 target aggressive. Twelve reactors in Indiana amount to an order for output from a design that has not yet started construction at its first site. No one has said who bears the cost if Seadrift slips.
