Google Deal With NextEra Will Restart Iowa Nuclear Plant In 2029
29th October 2025
As we have been writing about for the better part of the last 2 years, growing electricity needs from artificial-intelligence data centers are pushing tech giants back toward nuclear power.
On Monday, NextEra Energy and Google announced a deal to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which closed in 2020 after 45 years of operation. The 615-megawatt plant is expected to return to service in early 2029 under a 25-year power purchase agreement with Google, Reuters reported.
Shares of NextEra rose more than 1% after the announcement. The move adds to recent nuclear-supply arrangements tied to hyperscale cloud operators, echoing plans at the former Three Mile Island facility in Pennsylvania aimed at Microsoft data centers. As we have written about extensively on Zero Hedge, companies including Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have also signed agreements to buy future energy from advanced nuclear projects such as small modular reactors and fusion systems.