The economic development momentum for Cedar Rapids continues with the announcement of another data center coming to the Big Cedar Industrial Center near the Eastern Iowa Airport.
This new data center is even bigger than the $576 million Google data center that was announced earlier this year, and was to-date the largest economic development project in the city’s history.
The newly announced $750 million data center, with a yet-to-be-named company behind it, provides Cedar Rapids another feather in its economic development cap.
While the number of permanent jobs is minimal, the construction trade jobs and construction materials, energy usage and increased tax base make this an excellent economic development project for the city.
The project would be built in three phases along 76th Avenue SW, just west of the proposed Google project in the Big Cedar Industrial Site.
Between the proposed Google data center and the new data center proposal, nearly all 1,391 acres of the Big Cedar Industrial Center, owned by Alliant Energy, would be occupied.
Data centers fuel nuclear’s resurgence
One aspect of these new data centers that is getting attention is the massive amount of energy that they need to operate and remain sustainable.
Wind and solar are certainly coveted by Silicon Valley executives, but they aren’t reliable enough to be a viable energy source for these energy hungry data centers, so executives are falling back on one of the most reliable and green energy sources: nuclear.
The additional power needs of these data centers are increasingly being met by the restarting of shuttered nuclear power plants around the country.
Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan is being restarted after shutting down in 2022.
Just recently, Constellation Energy
announced that it was restarting its 835-megawatt Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear facility after it was shut down in 2019 due to a 20-year purchase power agreement with Microsoft.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft already purchases nuclear energy from Constellation for a data center in Virginia when wind and solar power aren’t available, and signed a first-of-its-kind contract for fusion energy, betting it might be delivered this decade.
We wouldn’t be surprised if Google and the owner of the new $750 million data center announce soon that they are both or individually helping to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center, which was shut down in 2020, with a dedicated purchase power agreement and some additional financial incentives.
Consider a recent statement by the CEO of NextEra John Ketchum on a second-quarter earnings call on July 24, as reported by CNBC: “There would be opportunities and a lot of demand from the market if we were able to do something with Duane Arnold.”
“We’re looking at it,” Mr. Ketchum said. “But we would only do it if we could do it in a way that is essentially risk free with plenty of mitigants around the approach. There are a few things we would have to work through.”
These data centers are economic development drivers, and if they were foundational to restarting the Duane Arnold Energy Center, then they would be an even more amazing economic development win for Cedar Rapids and the entire state.
