The Trump administration on Tuesday announced a $1 billion federal loan to Constellation Energy to restart part of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, now rebranded as the Crane Clean Energy Center, CNBC reports. The plant, formerly known as Three Mile Island Unit 1, last generated power in 2019. Its revival is scheduled for 2027 as part of a deal to supply electricity to Microsoft data centers. The site is infamous for the 1979 partial meltdown of Three Mile Island Unit 2, the worst nuclear accident in US history. The federal loan will cover most of the project's estimated $1.6 billion price tag, with initial funds set to be released in early 2026.
Constellation, the nation's largest nuclear operator, has agreed to safeguards intended to protect taxpayer funds. The company could have finished the project without federal assistance, but the loan should make electricity cheaper for 65 million people across the 13-state PJM Interconnection power grid, according to Greg Beard, a senior advisor to the Energy Department's Loan Programs Office. "What's important for the administration is to show support for affordable, reliable, secure energy in the US," Beard told reporters. "This loan to Constellation will lower the cost of capital and make power cheaper for those PJM ratepayers."
The Energy Department is also backing the revival of two other nuclear plants: Palisades in Michigan, with a $1.5 billion loan, and Duane Arnold in Iowa, which is tied to a Google power agreement. Three Mile Island's restart is one of several attempts to bring dormant reactors back online as demand for reliable electricity surges, driven in part by artificial intelligence and data center expansion. Nuclear energy is "virtually carbon-free," per CNN. But, as the Washington Post explains, quite a bit of controversy surrounds the idea of taxpayers subsidizing such projects, which carry "the financial risk that comes with generating energy for wealthy tech companies."
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