Data centers bought the watts. The buildings still wait.

The data-center story did not cool off. It split. In the same week Amazon bought nuclear that still goes to the grid, Texas kept a freeze on data-center permits, and the NRC handed TVA a construction permit for a small reactor that cannot generate a watt until a second license arrives. The press releases sound like power. The schedule still sounds like a queue.

The Calvert workaround

Amazon had wanted a campus beside Calvert Cliffs, Maryland's only nuclear plant. That plan died in August. Local opposition was loud enough that Calvert County put a six-month freeze on new data-center applications. On September 30 Amazon came back without the warehouse. Constellation announced a 20-year power-purchase agreement for 690 MW from the plant, including a 190 MW uprate due between 2030 and 2032. The deal backs more than $3 billion of work at a site that is 1,790 MW today and would be about 1,980 MW after the uprate. It also gives Constellation a reason to seek another 20-year operating license; the current ones run out in 2034 and 2036.

All of that electricity still flows to the PJM regional grid. Constellation said so on purpose. This is not a behind-the-meter hookup next door — the kind of co-location that ran into FERC when Amazon bought the Susquehanna campus from Talen. There is a related retail supply agreement for Amazon operations across PJM's 13 states. The plant stays. The town does not have to host the hall. The extra 190 MW is still four to six years out.

Texas froze the gas crutch

On September 21 Governor Abbott told the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to halt permits for data centers until ERCOT finishes its review of grid and water impact. Developers have until October 12 to return a notarized community-impact filing. ERCOT aims to publish with the Public Utility Commission by December 10. TCEQ has to report its own compliance by October 19. There is no hard date for the freeze to lift, and observers do not expect it before the November 3 midterms.

That pause hits the near-term workaround: behind-the-meter gas. Roughly 70% of the tracked Texas pipeline is off-grid generation, which still needs air permits. Chevron's Kilby project — a joint venture with Joulent, with a 20-year offtake from Microsoft — is supposed to run nearly 3 GW of gas turbines that never touch ERCOT. The final investment decision was due this year. Chevron now says it may slip into 2027. First electrons are still described as 2028. The offtake is bankable. The permit clock is not.

A construction permit is not electrons

On September 29 the NRC issued TVA a construction permit for one GE Vernova Hitachi BWRX-300 at Clinch River, near Oak Ridge — the first U.S. construction permit for that design, after a 14-month review. The reactor is rated about 300 MW. The permit does not allow fuel loading or commercial operation. TVA still needs a separate operating license, has not announced a construction start, and has not made a final board commitment to build. The Energy Department has pointed to a possible AI infrastructure site a few miles away. That is a map pin, not a power contract.

Nuclear for data centers is running on two clocks. Hyperscalers have contracted about 8.5 GW from U.S. reactors that already exist, are restarting, or are being uprated — Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft. Two restarts are funded: Crane for 2027 and Duane Arnold for early 2029. New-build is still a pipeline. One data-center-tied project is under construction (Kairos Hermes 2). The rest — SMRs, large-reactor campuses, and spectacle proposals like Valar Atomics' 456-reactor, 9.6 GW Utah campus — depend on sites, licenses, and first-of-a-kind cost that have not shown up yet.

The point

Labs can buy megawatts on paper. They still cannot open the hall on the lab's schedule. The Calvert deal is the tell: when the town says no, the offtake moves to the grid and the extra watts arrive in the next decade. Texas can slow the gas that was supposed to skip the queue. An SMR permit is a milestone and not a switch. For the density and interconnection math, see AI's real ceiling is megawatts. For the local fights, see data centers keep getting cancelled. Categories: Energy, Cloud GPU.