Three Mile Island Isn't Dead After All

The site of the worst nuclear reactor accident in US history has been dormant for five years. That's about to change, thanks in large part to Microsoft and its booming electricity needs. Constellation Energy on Friday announced the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, which infamously suffered a partial meltdown in one of its two reactors in 1979, will be refurbished and brought back online by 2028. The New York Times reports Microsoft has agreed to buy all the power the plant can supply for a 20-year period in order to support its data centers. The deal is subject to regulatory approval, and CNBC reports Constellation plans to keep it going until at least 2054. More:

• New equipment, new name: To revive the plant's one functioning reactor, Constellation will need to replace the main power transformer and restore its turbines and cooling systems, at a total cost of $1.6 billion. The plant will come back to life as the Crane Clean Energy Center, in honor of former Exelon CEO Chris Crane, who died in April.
• Local sentiment: The Times cites a recent poll that found 57% of Pennsylvania residents were in favor of reopening Three Mile Island "as long as it does not include new taxes or increased electricity rates." Under the terms of the deal, neither would occur.
• Skyrocketing needs: CNBC reports data centers currently consume 3% of electricity in the US, but Goldman Sachs estimates that figure will rise to 8% by 2030 as AI proliferates.
• Scale of Microsoft's needs: The Verge reports Microsoft will get 100% of the 837 megawatts of energy that Three Mile Island will be able to generate—"enough to power more than 800,000 homes." The power would support data center expansions in Chicago, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
• Not exactly a model: The Times notes that while electric utilities mothballed 13 reactors between 2012 and 2022 as cheap natural gas and wind and solar power outpaced nuclear power in popularity, experts say there are only two other nuclear plants that could be similarly revived in the face of tech companies' surging electricity needs: Michigan's Palisades plant and Iowa's Duane Arnold plant. The rest have gone too far down the decommissioning road.

(More Three Mile Island stories.)