Endangered bees derail Meta on its nuclear-powered data center project

Tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta saw its plans to construct a new AI data center get held up because of a special species of bees.

According to a report, a rare and endangered species of bees was seen on the land at the site where Meta wants to build its mega nuclear-powered data center, leading to a halt on the possible construction of the data center.

Meta also faced environmental regulatory challenges

The Financial Times reported that the billionaire was in talks with a nuclear power plant closer to the building site, in order to provide electricity for the data center. However, despite the plans, the construction has faced multiple hiccups including regulatory environmental challenges.

The report indicated that Zuckerberg said the rare bee species discovery on land next to a power plant where the data center was going to be constructed would have added complications to the construction.

Meta is not the only tech giant that is considering powering its data centers with nuclear power as Google and Amazon have also inked deals with nuclear power plant operators as they are capable of providing huge amounts of power.

In September 2024, Microsoft said it would use a nuclear reactor at the Three Mile Island plant, the site of the worst American nuclear accident, to meet some of its AI energy needs. Subject to regulatory approval, the deal will enable Microsoft to access 835 megawatts of energy from the plant, or 100% exclusive rights to the nuclear power plant.

Tech companies are moving to nuclear power in order to meet rising energy demands from data centers as they are in competition to train and maintain power-consuming AI models, as one AI query can take up to 10 times the energy of a standard Google search.

Zuckerberg and Meta are said to be continuing to look into carbon-free energy including nuclear, but Meta declined to comment on the issue.

During the ongoing AI-wars between the tech groups, nuclear is being seen as the best route to providing 24-hour uninterrupted power.

Nuclear power takes up huge investments

Nuclear power, however, is a high-cost project as it has a very long payback period but the industres in the West have generally relied on Russia for nuclear fuel. Due to highly toxic radioactive waste, which needs careful storage or else if released into the environment could harm both the surroundings and humans, critics have continued to caution possible users.

Competently, Amazon paid $650 million in March 2024 for the construction of a data center next to the Susquehanna Steam Electric nuclear plant, also in Pennsylvania. In the same vein of cleaner and more reliable energy, Google in October 2024, said it had ordered six to seven small modular nuclear reactors from the US start-up Kairos Power.

The deal made Google the first tech company to commission new nuclear power plants. This comes as Google also indicated that carbon emissions increased by about 50% since 2019, driven by data centers. The company has pledged to achieve net zero by 2030, a feat that might be hard to fulfill because of growing AI expansion.

According to reports, Zuckerberg is said to be under immense pressure to prove to shareholders that his decision to get everything into AI will be a success story for Meta. This is because Meta has continued to see its capital expenditure rise due to its investments in running servers and data centers to develop cutting-edge technology.

According to the Financial Times, Zuckerberg told staffers at the all-hands meeting that they had concluded the construction deal. Additionally, Meta would have been the first big technological firm to power its AI with nuclear energy and would be the largest nuclear plant available to power data centers.

The report also said the Meta owner has been frustrated with the lack of nuclear options in the US, while China has been embracing nuclear power. Despite the US having only a handful of reactors born and brought online, across the east, China appears to be building nuclear reactors at a fast pace.