Crypto News: The company bringing fission back

The idea of nuclear power is experiencing a bit of a revival. Will Wade writes about a company that's trying to benefit. Plus, a look at who will lead Apple next and whether data center subsidies are worthwhile. As ever, if this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up.

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When I started covering the US nuclear industry for Bloomberg News about five years ago, the biggest issue was which reactor was going to shut down next.

Nuclear plants are big and expensive to operate, and back in 2019 they were struggling to compete against cheap natural gas and renewable energy sources. I started keeping a list of US closures and have tracked 13 reactors that have gone dark since 2013.

That's why the past two years or so have been remarkable. The battle to rein in climate change has become more urgent, and people are realizing that carbon-free nuclear power will play an important part. A 2023 Pew Research Center survey found that 57% of Americans said they support the use of more nuclear power, up from 43% in 2020. Young activists, including last year's Miss America, are flooding TikTok and Instagram with quirky videos extolling the virtues of fission. It's a sharp shift from the anti-nuke protesters marching in the streets in decades past.

The Palisades nuclear plant on the shore of Lake Michigan in 2017. Photographer: Jim West/Alamy

For Bloomberg Businessweek, I recently wrote about how there's no better example of this reversal than the Palisades power plant in Michigan. It shut down in May 2022, the most recent US reactor on my list. But even before it went dark, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer pushed to keep it running. "I intend to do everything I can to keep this plant open, protect jobs, and expand clean energy production," she wrote to US Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm in April 2022. Whitmer kept her promise: In March 2023, the Department of Energy approved a $1.5 billion loan to a company called Holtec International to restart Palisades.

Holtec is a fascinating company, with origins in manufacturing gigantic concrete-and-steel storage casks for radioactive waste. It's the leading decommissioner of nuclear reactors in the US, and over the past five years has purchased four plants with the intention to tear them down, including Palisades. Now, Holtec is at the beginning of the process to revive the Michigan reactor and expects the site to start churning out power again in late 2025.

This is extraordinary: Nobody has resurrected a defunct reactor in the US before, and Holtec has no experience running a nuclear plant. It does have a history of safety violations that some experts find concerning. But as I've reported, government officials and industry executives are starting to talk about whether it makes sense for other nuclear plants to follow the Palisades path—and even add more atomic energy to reach the grid.

Dozens of companies are working on small modular reactors (SMRs), relatively compact designs that can be mass-produced in factories and installed on-site. The approach is expected to make reactors cheaper and faster to build. Holtec is one of the companies leading the SMR charge and expects to install reactors it designed at the Michigan plant by 2030.

Now I'm watching for which shuttered reactor may be next to come back to life—and how Holtec will continue to move with the twists and turns of the nuclear industry. Read my story to find out how the company rose from its manufacturing background to potentially leading a US nuclear revival.

Illustration: Justin Metz for Bloomberg Businessweek

Tim Cook has transformed Apple Inc. since taking over as chief executive officer from Steve Jobs in 2011, introducing new product categories (the smartwatch), pushing into new businesses (streaming video), and making an audacious attempt to take a new type of computing (mixed reality) mainstream. He's served for far longer than the average Fortune 500 CEO, and, at 63, is older than many of his peers. But if it seems like a logical time for Cook to start planning for someone else to shape Apple's next chapter, the situation is complicated by the lack of someone who's both ready immediately and likely to be a long-term successor.

Cook hasn't made many changes to Apple's executive team, which is mostly comprised of close colleagues he's worked with since the Jobs era. Other than the high-profile exit of designer Jony Ive and the arrival and departure of retail head Angela Ahrendts, the team has stayed mostly intact for the past decade. Like Cook, the key people in his inner circle are old enough and rich enough that they could have retired years ago.

Several people familiar with Apple's inner workings recently discussed the issue of succession with Businessweek, requesting anonymity to speak about the sensitive subject. Read Mark Gurman's story to find out what they said: Tim Cook Can't Run Apple Forever. Who's Next?

Illustration: Simon Bailly/Sepia for Bloomberg Businessweek

For years, US states have dangled tax breaks to help lure data centers, eager for the investment and jobs—and also the cachet of reeling in big-name tech companies, such as Apple, Facebook and Google. Now, in the midst of an artificial-intelligence-fueled building boom, those incentives are coming under greater scrutiny from politicians of both parties.

At issue is that these nerve centers of the digital age typically employ just a few dozen workers. To run one, all that's needed is a skeleton crew that includes technicians, security personnel and building-control specialists, whereas a factory of similar size would have hundreds if not thousands of workers.

Critics are also concerned about the strain on power grids. Electricity use by data centers will increase at an annual rate of 15% through 2028, according to projections by S&P Global Inc.

More than half of states—including Arizona, New York and Texas—offer some form of tax breaks for data centers. But in several, lawmakers are pushing for curbs. It's an uphill fight that pits politicians backed by groups opposed to so-called corporate welfare and environmentalists against deep-pocketed companies and their allies in government who want to be seen as friendly to business.

Saijel Kishan takes a look at how lawmakers in several states are reacting to the economics of AI and the needs of communities here: 'It's a Money Loser': Tax Breaks for Data Centers Are Under Fire

$3 trillion

That's the size of the asset pile burden that has sparked a hunt for IPO alternatives. "There will always be a place for a public market exit, but the systems that are being built enable [startups] to have a private life that's as long as they want," said Kelly Rodriques, chief executive officer of Forge Global, a market infrastructure and data provider that runs a private trading venue.

"This is the government's Katrina moment."

Thomas Traumann

Rio de Janeiro-based communications consultant

Floods that submerged the southern part of Brazil on Sunday have left at least 100 people dead and 160,000 displaced. Now, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is racing to deliver relief, facing political risk if his response falls short of need.

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