🔋Three Mile A-island
🔋Three Mile A-island
45 years after a reactor meltdown and 5 years after closure, this nuclear powerplant will soon return.
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The Three-Mile Island (TMI) nuclear powerplant meltdown changed the public perception of nuclear power for decades. The cheap carbon-free energy source was gaining traction around the world. In 1979, the meltdown of reactor 2 caused panic and overreaction among media and government agencies. In hindsight, we not only know that there were no deaths, but there were negligible radiation effects on residents, plants, or animals living near the plant. For a good review of what actually happened during the incident, the severity, and the consequence there is a great three-part review at Gordian Knot News (1,2,3).
As a consequence, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission grew instead of being held accountable for mishandling the incident. Further, they did not license any new nuclear plants until ~2010, effectively sealing the demise of the nuclear industry sometime in the future. By 1990, no new nuclear plants were coming online in the US. Had there been no overreaction to this harmless incident, the US would likely have a mostly decarbonized electric grid today. The best historical outline of the nuclear industry's demise I’ve read can be found here.
While TMI reactor 2 was destroyed, reactor 1 had gone in and out of operation following the incident. As of 2019, reactor 1 has been shut down citing economic factors like cheap natural gas in the region. Recently, it has been announced that the operator Constellation Energy will restart the reactor and sell energy to Microsoft for data centers. Considering there were many years of operation following the accident this shouldn’t come as a complete surprise, but it still grabs headlines due to the stigma surrounding the plant’s history.
Back in April, I highlighted the growing interest in nuclear power among technology companies and how it may spur a nuclear revival. I’ve also debunked the common misconception that “xyz” uses “too much” energy, in this case, AI. Pennsylvania is getting on top of this trend, as Amazon also worked out a deal with Talen Energy to operate a nuclear plant for data center use in the state.
While many involved in the mainstream energy media dismiss nuclear as being too expensive, it is telling that these tech companies are so eager about it. Since as a business their goal is to maximize profits, the cost basis of their operations is a primary consideration. The site plans to operate at costs potentially higher than the prevailing market rate, so it does show that reliability could be a critical factor for these companies. Since nuclear energy has the highest capacity factors and reliability of any energy source, they view it as the wisest economic investment for electricity. While we can read reports about which energy source is cheapest and best, you can let businesses do the talking and show you where they are allocating to power their most important power hungry assets.
TMI cited economic reasons for shutting down in 2019 though, so what changed? For one, the Inflation Reduction Act subsidies help nuclear too. The IRA subsidies help reduce the cost per MWh into an acceptable range, for Microsoft in this case. The same goes for renewables and fossil fuels though. While the IRA doesn’t support fossil fuel subsidies, there are some legacy incentives for those energy types.
My view is that it would be better if it was a level playing field and each source was not in a subsidy battle with one another, but this is the world we are in now. As of late, renewables have been winning the subsidy battle, helping bring down their upfront cost and a reason why they are responsible for the majority of capacity additions to the grid in recent years. This lopsided incentive structure could and likely lead to some distortions in the future for reliability and costs.
Overall, this goes to show the energy importance of AI data centers. Companies are making private deals with energy providers to power their data centers. These companies need so much electricity that it is not viable to go into the industrial market for electricity, showing the lack of resilience of the current grid.
This is a big step in the right direction for nuclear energy in public perception and regulation as this was the cite of the nuclear meltdown in the US. The US is seeing growing support for nuclear energy at the same time advanced reactor research is ongoing and companies are making the move to invest in the energy source. Until next week,
-Grayson
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