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  • And I guess that the best starting point because it's well documented the terms of the deal SMRs and what they are is whether it meaningfully changes the trajectory of meeting your power needs but also your targets for climate as well.

  • Well the world needs more carbon free energy.

  • And this agreement that we signed with Kairos is an important milestone in what's been a 15 year journey at Google to make the transition to clean energy.

  • It's our first nuclear energy deal.

  • And we feel that nuclear is a very important technology for going carbon free for offices data centers communities where we operate because it's an always on carbon free energy resource.

  • I'm very interested in the technology.

  • You know I am.

  • But I'm also interested in the economics and math.

  • Are you able to say even if it's an estimate kind of where you see the dollar per megawatt hour being by 2030 2035 when these come online.

  • Well I can't talk about the specifics of this deal.

  • But what's interesting about it is we didn't do a deal for just one reactor.

  • It's actually for a series of reactors what we call an order book.

  • And that repeatability helps to drive down costs and helps to take the technology to scale faster.

  • Your focus is eliminating carbon emissions by 2030.

  • Does this get you there Michael.

  • That's right Caroline.

  • We have a goal as a company to be 24 7 carbon free in everywhere we operate in every location every hour of the day.

  • And it's a huge challenge.

  • We've actually been in this space for 15 years in terms of doing wind and solar large deals were one of the largest corporate purchasers of wind and solar on the planet.

  • We signed over 100 deals.

  • But we know that to get to carbon free 24 hours a day we're going to need more technologies than just wind and solar.

  • The wind doesn't blow all the time.

  • The sun doesn't shine all the time.

  • And what's great about technologies like advanced nuclear is that they provide a more always on resource.

  • So it's a it's a very big part of our of our path to 24 7 carbon free energy.

  • But it takes time.

  • And right now a I generative A.I. the training of it is in the here and now.

  • Do you have the energy infrastructure necessary to satisfy that demand.

  • Yes we do.

  • And it's why we're making big bets like we are on nuclear.

  • But we're also still betting big on wind and solar and storage.

  • We signed over four gigawatts of deals just last year.

  • The most we've ever signed in a single year.

  • And now we're inking new agreements with utilities to develop a portfolio of technologies that can meet our 24 7 carbon free needs.

  • So we're both betting short term and long term.

  • I know you won't give me a dollar per megawatt hour figure but you do expect the SMRs to be competitive and of value versus solar and wind and the other technologies you outlined.

  • Absolutely.

  • We wouldn't do this if it didn't make sense for our business.

  • And you know one of the things that I think we ought to really think about and how we value these approaches is the always on nature.

  • Exactly.

  • We're going for hours and it delivers a lot of value and you can put it anywhere.

  • And so that again is very good for the business.

  • Can I just jump in really quick and ask you.

  • Your job is really interesting because you you're you are responsible for the energy needs.

  • If you're not calculating the cost per megawatt hour do you have a clear figure in your head about the energy need over a five year or 10 year time horizon.

  • Yeah well we've been doing this for like I said 15 years.

  • We have a sense of how demand is going to grow.

  • We have a good sense of the portfolio of resources that we need and we're making decisions that make sense for the business.

  • It makes sense for our growth as a company.

  • So we feel we're on a good path.

  • It's busy out there in nuclear.

  • Never have we talked about it more in the Amazon deal for example.

  • These are companies that we've not really heard of.

  • Kairos power the private X energy.

  • Are there enough startups enough companies building what you need right now to partner with.

  • You know it reminds me of the early days of wind and solar.

  • We were one of the pioneers and signing corporate PPA agreements to buy these technologies.

  • And there were not a lot of players in the early days of those as well.

  • But now with this new set of technologies that we're going to need to get to 24 7 carbon free energy it's not just nuclear it's enhanced geothermal it's long duration storage.

  • And so it's great to see others getting in the game.

  • The more the merrier.

  • I'd like to see 100 more companies doing nuclear deals from what we've seen this week.

  • We're running out of time.

  • So you will look at geothermal.

  • And can you give us a proportion of what you see the contribution of nuclear geothermal and solar.

  • Yeah actually geothermal was one of the first advanced energy deals that we did.

  • We signed a deal in 2021 to do a project in Nevada.

  • It's now scaled to a deal that's 25 times bigger than that original project.

  • So we've got experience in dealing with these new technologies and we're super excited about the potential for nuclear.

And I guess that the best starting point because it's well documented the terms of the deal SMRs and what they are is whether it meaningfully changes the trajectory of meeting your power needs but also your targets for climate as well.

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