This Speakout was written by Robert McTaggart, assistant department head of chemistry, biochemistry and physics at South Dakota State University.

Data centers offer great potential for economic growth. But the computers and the systems that cool them consume energy. If that energy is not clean, then carbon emissions will increase.

Despite our relatively cooler temperatures in the Northern Plains, potential help from energy storage and hydrogen, more efficient computer chips, and research into thermoelectric materials that convert heat into electricity, power-hungry data centers will still need more electricity than renewables can provide.

We can consider three options to deliver enough energy. If we do not build any new power generation, then somebody else on the grid will go without electricity. If we make up the difference by burning natural gas or coal, then we will emit more carbon. Or we can make enough carbon-free power with more nuclear energy.

Several tech companies thus want to reduce their carbon footprint by restarting older reactors or building new small modular reactors. The latter can be right-sized to the demand, be manufactured and shipped to the site, provide heat for industrial processing, be walk-away safe, operate flexibly with renewables, and generate less waste.

Today, it is difficult to build anything new like a nuclear reactor or a new data center. But we cannot accrue the benefits of data centers in South Dakota and outcompute the rest of the world if we fail to produce enough power. For nuclear power, that path will be easier if we finally stop kicking the proverbial can down the road and address our nuclear waste issues.

Although direct burial is cheaper today, the once-through cycle will only consume 10% of the energy in the nuclear fuel before disposal. To consume a higher percentage of fuel, we should improve our nuclear fuels, recycle our current stockpile, and consume any remaining waste in an advanced reactor. When cooled by something other than water, an advanced reactor can attain higher temperatures that burn up more of the nuclear fuel.

As the volume, radioactivity, and heat of the final waste form decrease, so will the need for critical elements in radiation shielding, thermal management, and corrosion resistance for a nuclear waste repository. Smaller repositories (and fewer of them) would allow us to keep more critical elements above ground where they are needed. As a bonus, the time to isolate waste from the biosphere will shrink to a couple hundred years from tens of thousands of years.

The same artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum computing that enhance the design of nuclear power plants can benefit South Dakota in agriculture, finance, cybersecurity, and other fields. To power the computational output of data centers, we will need a nuclear workforce in radiation protection, radiochemistry, engineering, and materials science.