Microsoft needs so much power for AI that Three Mile Island is reopening

Rocio Fabbro
·2-min read
Photo: Ying Tang/NurPhoto (Getty Images)
Photo: Ying Tang/NurPhoto (Getty Images)

Microsoft (MSFT) and the energy firm Constellation (CEG) have signed a 20-year deal to supply power to the tech giant, including reopening one of the nuclear reactors on Three Mile Island.

Under the deal announced Friday, Microsoft will buy energy from the renewed plant to power its data centers, which have become even more energy hungry as the company looks to build up its artificial intelligence capabilities.

“Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise,” Joe Dominguez, the president and CEO of Constellation, said in a statement.

The deal sets the stage for the reopening of Three Mile Island’s Unit 1 reactor, which was shuttered in 2019 due to funding issues and had begun a decades-long process of being decommissioned. The new Crane Clean Energy Center is expected to go online in 2028, and will create 3,400 direct and indirect jobs and provide more than $3 billion in state and federal taxes, Constellation said.

“Before it was prematurely shuttered due to poor economics, this plant was among the safest and most reliable nuclear plants on the grid, and we look forward to bringing it back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania,” Dominguez said.

The reactor is located next to — but is fully independent from — the Three Mile Island Unit 2 reactor, which partially melted down in 1979. That was the worst accident ever at a U.S. commercial nuclear power plant. Its neighbor was unaffected and continued operating for decades.

Constellation said it will make “significant investments” to restore the plant, including the turbine, generator, main power transformer, and cooling and control systems. The company is seeking licensing to extend plant operations to at least 2054.

The Crane Clean Energy Center will provide upwards of 800 megawatts to the grid, Constellation said.

AI has put energy supply questions back into focus. In its annual forecast, the International Energy Agency estimated that data centers’ total electricity consumption could reach more than 1,000 terawatt hours in 2026.

A single Google (GOOGL) search uses 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, while a request for OpenAI’s ChatGPT takes 2.9 watt-hours. If there were 9 billion ChatGPT queries daily, this would require almost 10 terawatt hours of additional electricity in a year.

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