(TheConservativeTimes.org) – The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant could restart with a twenty year agreement that would have Microsoft buying power supply from its data centers using carbon-free energy.
Constellation Energy made the announcement five years after the plant was shut down for allegedly losing money and lawmakers refused to subsidize it. The decision to restart the plant is due to a need for nuclear power with the intention of stopping climate change while meeting energy demand.
Microsoft is interested in working with the plant, because it would fuel their goals for being “carbon negative” by the end of the decade. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has to approve the restart, and they will also need permits from local and state agencies, according to Constellation Energy.
The company will pay one and a half billion dollars on equipment such as a turbine, generator, cooling, control systems, and main power transformers to restart the unit.
The director of MIT’s Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems and professor of nuclear science and engineering, Jacopo Buongiorno, said that restoring the energy plant is realistic but it won’t be easy.
“It all depends on the state of the components, the systems,” Buongiorno said.
He also said that restoring a nuclear power plant is cheaper than building a plant from scratch; according to Buongiorno, there is another power plant, the Palisades, being restored that was shut down in 2022 in Michigan. The government promised a loan of one and a half billion dollars to reopen the Palisades nuclear plant.
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