Microsoft Restarts Nuclear Reactor: It Already Caused a Disaster Once
Microsoft is planning to reactivate a nuclear reactor that nearly caused a disaster when it failed decades ago. The giant wants the extra power for AI computing centers and has just signed a preliminary agreement.
History has never seen this before
Microsoft wants to lease the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant for 20 years. The Redmond company would be the only entity that could use this energy infrastructure in the state of Pennsylvania. The plant was closed in 2019 and was scheduled to be completely dismantled 60 years later. However, the owner of Three Mile Island, Constellation Energy, has just announced that it will invest $1.6 billion to restore the plant to operational status.
Under the agreement, Microsoft would gain access to 835 megawatts of power and would be the sole tenant of electricity from the power plant. – it would be an unprecedented event for a nuclear power plant to have only one customer. For the sake of scale, it is worth mentioning that 835 MW of electricity would be enough to provide electricity to 800 thousand homes. The transaction is worth USD 9.4 billion. At this point, Microsoft has reached an agreement with Constellation Energy, but now the entire transaction must be approved by the relevant bodies of the US government.
Power-Hungry AI: The US Doesn’t Want to Surrender to China
Microsoft needs additional power sources to power servers and data centers used for artificial intelligence (such as ChatGPT-4, which is used by Microsoft’s proprietary tool, Copilot). Generative AI is very power-hungry.
“The energy industry must not stand in the way of beating China and Russia in artificial intelligence” – said Joseph Dominguez, CEO of Constellation, the owner of the power plant.
The Three Mile Island Incident Almost Ended Like Chernobyl
Finally, as a historical curiosity, it is worth emphasizing that the Three Mile Island incident took place in March 1979, where a partial core meltdown occurred due to the failure of the cooling system pump and one of the safety mechanisms. As a result of the failure, radioactive gases (2.5 megacuries) and a radioactive isotope of iodine (15 curies) were released from the power plant. Fortunately, no one was exposed to radiation, although It took 14 years to fully reverse the effects of the disasterThe incident led to a decline in confidence in nuclear power plants.
Another important topic is the provision of “clean energy”. The head of Constellation believes that the Three Mile Island power plant will provide as much green energy as all other renewable energy sources in Pennsylvania combined over the last 30 years.
