Microsoft simply signed a deal to revive the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant. If permitted by regulators, the software program maker would have unique rights to 100% of the output for its AI knowledge heart wants.
Constellation, the proprietor of the Three Mile Island plant, introduced an influence buy settlement with Microsoft earlier immediately, which ought to see the positioning coming again on-line in 2028, assuming regulators approve it.
The reactor that Microsoft plans to supply its vitality from was retired in 2019 for financial causes and is positioned subsequent to a unit that was shut down in 1979 after the worst US nuclear accident in historical past. The plant that Constellation plans to reopen can generate 837 megawatts of vitality, sufficient to energy greater than 800,000 houses — demonstrating the massive quantity of energy wanted for knowledge facilities and Microsoft’s AI ambitions.
Microsoft has agreed to buy energy from the plant — which might be renamed to the Crane Clear Vitality Middle to honor the late Chris Crane, former CEO of Exelon — for 20 years in a first-of-its-kind deal for the software program large.
Microsoft’s personal greenhouse gasoline emissions are rising with its concentrate on AI, placing its bold local weather targets in danger. Bloomberg reviews that this nuclear plant would assist Microsoft’s plans to run its knowledge facilities on clear vitality by 2025 and energy knowledge heart expansions in Chicago, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
“This settlement is a serious milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to assist decarbonize the grid in assist of our dedication to change into carbon detrimental,” says Bobby Hollis, vice chairman of vitality at Microsoft. “Microsoft continues to collaborate with vitality suppliers to develop carbon-free vitality sources to assist meet the grids’ capability and reliability wants.”
Microsoft has been betting on next-generation nuclear reactors to energy its knowledge heart and AI plans lately, searching for somebody who might roll out a plan for small modular reactors (SMR) final yr. Microsoft cofounder Invoice Gates can also be a “massive believer that nuclear vitality may help us clear up the local weather drawback.”
Constellation will make investments $1.6 billion to revive the plant, and the corporate will want approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Fee to carry the positioning again on-line, alongside permits from state and native companies. Constellation can also be pursuing a license renewal to increase plant operations till no less than 2054.
