Why Microsoft made a deal to help restart Three Mile Island

That nuclear energy plant is usually related to a really particular occasion. One among its reactors, Unit 2, suffered a partial meltdown in 1979 in what stays essentially the most important nuclear accident in US historical past. It has been shuttered ever since.

However the web site, in Pennsylvania, can be dwelling to a different reactor—Unit 1, which persistently and safely generated electrical energy for many years till it was shut down in 2019. The positioning’s proprietor introduced final week that it has plans to reopen the plant and signed a take care of Microsoft. The corporate will buy the plant’s complete electrical producing capability over the following 20 years.  

This information is fascinating for therefore many causes. Clearly this web site holds a sure significance within the historical past of nuclear energy within the US. There’s a risk this may be one of many first reactors within the nation to reopen after shutting down. And Microsoft can be shopping for all of the electrical energy from the reactor. Let’s dig into what this says about the way forward for the nuclear trade and Massive Tech’s energy demand.  

Unit 2 at Three Mile Island operated for just some months earlier than the accident, in March 1979. On the time, Unit 1 was down for refueling. That reactor began again up, to some controversy, within the mid-Nineteen Eighties and produced sufficient electrical energy for a whole lot of 1000’s of houses within the space for greater than 30 years.

Finally, although, the plant confronted financial struggles. Regardless that it was working at  comparatively excessive effectivity and with low prices, it was pushed out of enterprise by document low costs for pure gasoline and the introduction of comparatively low-cost, sponsored renewable power to the grid, says Patrick White, analysis director of the Nuclear Innovation Alliance, a nonprofit assume tank. 

That state of affairs has shifted in simply the previous few years, White says. There’s extra money obtainable now for nuclear, together with new technology-agnostic tax credit within the Inflation Discount Act. And there’s additionally rising concern in regards to the elevated power demand on the ability grid, partly from tech giants seeking to energy knowledge facilities like these wanted to run AI.

In saying its deal with Microsoft, Constellation Vitality, the proprietor of Three Mile Island Unit 1, additionally shared that the plant is getting a rebrand—the positioning can be renamed the Crane Clear Vitality Heart. (Unsure if that one’s going to stay.)  

The confluence of the actual location of this reactor and the truth that the electrical energy will go to energy knowledge facilities (and different infrastructure) makes this complete announcement immediately attention-grabbing. As one headline put it, “Microsoft AI Wants So A lot Energy It is Tapping Web site of US Nuclear Meltdown.”