Three Mile Island To Be Reactivated In Plan To Feed Power-Hungry Data Centers

Nuclear power could return to Pennsylvania’s infamous Three Mile Island power plant as one the world's largest tech companies looks for reliable energy to fuel its growing data center portfolio.

Constellation Energy Corp., the biggest U.S. operator of nuclear reactors, announced Friday it reached a 20-year deal with Microsoft for electricity generated by Three Mile Island Unit 1, which wasn’t involved in the 1979 partial meltdown but has been out of operation since 2019. 

The energy company said it will invest $1.6B to reopen the reactor and has agreed to sell all the power it generates to Microsoft in part to help the tech company reach its goal of having negative carbon emissions by 2030, Bloomberg reported.

The reactor, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center, is slated to be online and plugged into the power grid by 2028. The plan still needs regulatory approval from local and federal agencies, including the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, before it can be turned on, and Constellation said it plans to extend plant operations until at least 2054. 

“Before it was prematurely shuttered due to poor economics, this plant was among the safest and most reliable nuclear plants on the grid, and we look forward to bringing it back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania,” Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez said in a statement. 

Constellation first purchased the Unit 1 reactor in 1999, and it generated 837 megawatts of power — enough for 800,000 homes — until it was mothballed in 2019. 

Its reactivation will generate more than $3B in state and federal tax revenue and more than 3,400 direct and indirect jobs, according to a study commissioned by Constellation. 

Microsoft’s commitment to buy the nuclear energy, which does not create carbon emissions, is a key facet in its strategy to secure more power amid spiking demand due to the construction of more of the data centers that power daily life along with the nascent artificial intelligence industry.

Energy procurement is seen as a key limiting factor for the speed at which AI firms can innovate. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is pouring billions of dollars into a moonshot to unlock fusion energy to power tomorrow’s innovations. 

To meet today’s energy needs, data center operators are looking to expand the use of nuclear power. Amazon has acquired thousands of acres at a Talen Energy plant this year and is reportedly also exploring deals with power producers in Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas. 

Meanwhile, Dominion Energy announced in August that it may build a data center next to its nuclear plant in Connecticut. 

Several nuclear power companies now exist solely to target data center operators with small-scale nuclear reactors to meet their specific energy needs. 

The plans are coming up against regulatory hurdles along with industry opposition. Exelon, the parent company of several U.S. utilities, has filed objections to a proposed deal between Amazon's cloud services branch AWS and Talen, asking regulators to reject the deal.  

A coalition of utilities has emerged to fight these single-service power plans, arguing that the deals come at the expense of consumers, could drive up prices and hurt grid reliability. 

Reactivating a reactor on Three Mile Island comes with the added hurdle of turning nuclear power back on at the site of the country’s worst nuclear disaster. After the Unit 2 reactor meltdown in 1979, the plant became a lightning rod for environmental and anti-nuclear activists, although the meltdown caused no injuries and it was determined there were no ill effects on the closest communities.

But there are plenty of proponents to the plan to turn on Unit 1 — Constellation pointed to a statewide poll from Susquehanna Polling & Research that said Pennsylvanians support turning the plant back on by a 2-1 margin. Among the plan’s supporters is Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. 

“Under the careful watch of state and federal authorities, the Crane Clean Energy Center will safely utilize existing infrastructure to sustain and expand nuclear power in the Commonwealth while creating thousands of energy jobs and strengthening Pennsylvania’s legacy as a national energy leader,” Shapiro said in a statement.