If you drive along the Susquehanna river in central Pennsylvania, you will come across a sprawling island in the middle of the water… with two nuclear reactors jutting into the sky.
Three Mile Island is infamous for when Unit 2, owned by Energy Solutions, had a partial meltdown in 1979. That reactor has been non-operational ever since.
The other reactor, Unit 1, is owned by Constellation Energy. The reactor operated without issue for decades; but was shut down in 2019 for economic reasons.
Now, there are plans to bring Unit 1 back.
Constellation announced on Friday that it will partner with Microsoft in a 20 year power purchase agreement. Constellation expects to spend $1.6 billion to restart Unit 1 by 2028, putting an estimated 835 megawatts of energy on the grid. In turn, Microsoft will use the energy to offset the burden that its data centers and artificial intelligence generation has on the power grid.
Before the reactor can restart, Constellation says they will make significant investments in safety upgrades. The reactor must pass all federal regulations and certifications before it can operate again.
“Three Mile Island is a congested storage area for nuclear waste,” said Gene Stilp, with No Nukes Pennsylvania. “That's all that's there. And there's no place to put the nuclear waste.”
Earlier this month, protestors held a press conference at the state capitol as rumors of the restart were circulating.
Besides concerns about nuclear waste, critics of nuclear energy say the industry relies too much on government funding and can’t compete in the energy market.
“This corporation will be getting a big subsidy from taxpayers, ratepayers across Pennsylvania and the United States,” said Stilp.
Rep. Thomas Mehaffie, who has Three Mile Island in his district, says restarting the reactor will create jobs, and make the island more safe because there will be more federal regulatory oversight.
He also emphasized nuclear energy as a carbon free source of baseline energy.
“Our grid is not stable. Our grid, if you talk to PJM, is five years from going backward because we don't have enough power.”
PJM, which is the power grid for the much of the east coast, is facing a supply and demand crisis.
Fossil fuel plants are coming offline.
Data centers that power the internet and artificial intelligence are coming online… and require large amounts of energy.
Critics say clean energy should go to powering necessities, not new, high usage technologies.
“We need to decide as a country, as a world, is this the moment when we need AI to the degree that companies like Microsoft think we need it?” said Karen Feridun with Better Path Coalition.
In an email, a Constellation spokesperson noted that artificial intelligence and data centers are a 'backbone to the economy and way of life'. That it is not a question of if the data centers will come on, but how and when. And then in, turn, fueled by what?