Microsoft is hoping to meet this rising demand by turning on one of the reactors at an infamous nuclear power plant. The company has signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy, which owns the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, now known as the Crane Clean Energy Center. Once the site of the worst U.S. nuclear accident when the Unit 2 reactors suffered a core meltdown in 1979, Three Mile Island will now help run Microsoft’s data centers.
The last Three Mile Island reactor, Unit 1, was shut down in 2019. This will be the one that Microsoft restarts, a first for a U.S. reactor. It won’t be as simple as flipping a switch though. There’ll be red tape to wade through from organizations like the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and state and local officials. And the reactor itself will need refurbishing, from the turbine and generator to the main power transformer and coolant and control systems.
“This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative,” said Microsoft Vice President of Energy Bobby Hollis. “Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grids’ capacity and reliability needs.”
