The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved a $1.9 billion loan to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center nuclear reactor to provide dedicated baseload power for Google’s AI operations.

NextEra Energy has secured a $1.9 billion loan from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center, a 615-megawatt nuclear facility in Linn County, Iowa. Under the agreement, Google will purchase power from the plant for its AI data centers. The project will also strengthen local grid reliability and create "thousands of direct and indirect jobs," NextEra said last year.

Driven by rapid AI expansion, Google and other data center operators are urgently securing power capacity. Google previously pledged to offset its electricity consumption with green and renewable sources, achieving that target in 2018. However, the company recently partnered with a natural gas power plant to supply energy for one of its Texas data centers. Similarly, facilities operated by Tesla, Meta, and other technology firms have relied on carbon-intensive grid power or deployed dedicated natural gas generators.

Consequently, Google’s nuclear agreement represents a strategic turning point, providing the company with relatively low-emission power—though it does not resolve nuclear waste management. The DOE intends to restart three mothballed power plants to bolster both the electrical grid and AI data center demand, making this new loan a definitive step toward that objective.

The Duane Arnold Energy Center’s initial closure followed a dramatic final chapter. On August 10, 2020, a tropical storm struck Iowa with wind gusts reaching 140 mph, toppling the plant’s cooling towers and effectively ending operations at a facility already slated for decommissioning. Rising demand for data center energy has now revived the site, with NextEra planning to resume power generation by 2029. Significant developments are likely before then, and $1.9 billion remains a relatively modest capital requirement in the nuclear power sector.