Three Mile Island is coming back online to supply carbon-free energy for Microsoft’s growing arsenal of data centers.
Constellation Energy Corp. announced on Friday, September 20, the signing of a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft that will pave the way for the launch of the Crane Clean Energy Center (CCEC) and restart of the Unit 1 reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania.
“Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise,” Joe Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation, said in a press release. “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. We are especially honored to name this new plant after our former CEO Chris Crane, who was a fierce advocate for our business, devoting his entire career to the safe, reliable operation of our nation’s nuclear fleet, and we will continue that legacy at the Crane Clean Energy Center.”
The History of Three Mile Island
Three Mile Island had been in operation for about five years when, at 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, a pressure valve in the Unit 2 reactor failed to close.
Irradiated cooling water drained from the open valve into adjoining buildings, and the reactor’s core began to overheat. Emergency cooling pumps automatically kicked in, and it is believed that they could have prevented the situation from escalating had they been left alone. However, human operators in the control room reportedly misread confusing and contradictory readings and shut off the emergency system.
The reactor was also shut down, but temperatures and pressure within its core continued to rise due to the residual heat released by the fission process. In a few short hours, the core had heated to over 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit – within 1,000 degrees of meltdown temperature.
Operators were able to get the emergency pumps restarted around 8 p.m., and temperatures and pressure within the reactor slowly dropped through the night. It’s believed the reactor came within an hour of a complete meltdown, which would have exposed the surrounding community to harmful levels of radiation. While plant workers were exposed to unhealthy levels of radiation during the height of the crisis, no injuries, deaths, or direct health effects were caused by the incident.
Cleanup efforts at Unit 2 continued until 1990, but the reactor was too damaged to resume operation. Utah-based EnergySolutions acquired the unit from FirstEnergy in December 2020. The decades-long decommissioning project of the reactor moved into a new phase as crews were able to begin removing core debris.
EnergySolutions says it will take about six years to remove these components, and then another seven or eight years to completely dismantle the structure.
The unharmed Unit 1 reactor was shut down during the crisis, and it did not resume operation until 1985. It operated without incident until noon on September 20, 2019, when it was taken offline with the expectation that it would be decommissioned.
There is, however, a renewed interest in nuclear power, mostly due to the escalating energy needs of data centers and artificial intelligence technology.
Constellation anticipates the CCEC to be online in 2028. The re-starting of the reactor will require U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval following a comprehensive safety and environmental review, as well as permits from relevant state and local agencies. Constellation says the project will add approximately 835 megawatts of carbon-free energy to the grid to service Microsoft’s energy needs and will create 3,400 direct and indirect jobs and deliver more than $3 billion in state and federal taxes.
"This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft's efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative. Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grids' capacity and reliability needs," said Bobby Hollis, VP of Energy, Microsoft.
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