March 21, 2025
Paul Kuehnel/York Daily Record via Imagn Content Services
Federal officials heard support and concerns about Constellation Energy's $1.6 billion plan to reopen Three Mile Island's Unit 1 reactor to power Microsoft AI facilities. This photo taken in 2019 in Goldsboro, Pennsylvania, shows the Three Mile Island cooling towers in the background.
Speakers at a virtual meeting Thursday about Three Mile Island raised concerns about restarting the nuclear plant's Unit 1 reactor, nearly a half-century after its sister became a national symbol of the fraught promise of nuclear energy.
Members of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission heard support from nuclear energy advocates and Dauphin County residents for Constellation Energy's plan to restart the power plant. The Baltimore-based company announced last year it has a contract to supply Microsoft with 835 megawatts of electricity for an artificial intelligence data center.
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But skeptics, including longtime Three Mile Island opponent Eric Epstein of Harrisburg, told the commission they have questions about how the 50-year-old plant was mothballed when Constellation shut it down in 2019, how much traffic it would generate, and the storage of radioactive spent fuel.
They also said they're concerned about how the facility will interact with the Susquehanna River in an age when climate change both makes water an increasingly scarce resource and flooding more violent and unpredictable.
Paul Gunter, director of the reactor oversight project for Beyond Nuclear, noted the Government Accountability Office has advised the NRC to address climate risks to nuclear power plants by using future climate projections to assess safety risks rather than historical data.
"The NRC environmental review process is not unlike driving your car through the rear view mirror," Gunter said. "The GAO has called attention to the fact that you're not doing an adequate environmental review, and in particular, that you need to look at the impacts of climate change on the Susquehanna River levels."
The meeting was an opportunity for NRC members and the Constellation Energy team to discuss an environmental review required under federal law before the agency can approve the plan to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1.
Constellation said in September that it would invest $1.6 billion to overhaul the plant, which it acquired in 1999 and shut down six years ago, citing economic conditions.
Located in Londonderry Township, Dauphin County, the plant is adjacent to but independent from the Unit 2 Three Mile Island reactor, which suffered a partial meltdown in 1979. The incident shook public confidence in nuclear power. Both plants occupy an island in the Susquehanna River about 15 miles south of Harrisburg.
Constellation said it plans to rename the plant the Crane Clean Energy Center after the company's former CEO Chris Crane. The change must also be approved by the NRC.
Company officials said they plan to submit an environmental report to the NRC in October and hope to obtain final environmental approval and renewed permits by the first quarter of 2027.
In a presentation to the NRC, Constellation said the plant would be restored to its previous operational condition and that no major demolition or construction is planned. The project would include modifications to the base of one of the two cooling towers, reactor building cooling equipment and an underground oil tank that had been used to store fuel for diesel generators.
The project has received support from the Pennsylvania Building Trades Council, which estimated it would add $16 billion to the state's GDP and more than $3 billion in state and federal taxes.
Constellation said it plans to pay for the project with its own money, revenue from the Microsoft contract and federal tax credits available to new emissions-free energy projects.
Londonderry Township Supervisor Anna Dale said she was part of a group that tried to prevent the plant's shutdown in 2019 and tsupports the plan to restart Unit 1 because of the demand for energy in the state and the carbon neutral electricity it would provide.
"I live five miles from the island, so the kind of impact on the quality of our air is very important to me, not only our residents, but the community and our family," Dale said.
Epstein, chairman of the nuclear watchdog group Three Mile Island Alert, said he has questions about the storage of the plant's used nuclear fuel rods, which according to Constellation's presentation were removed from the reactor and placed in dry storage casks in a facility adjacent to the plant on the island. Epstein said he has been unable to get answers from Constellation about the plan for storing the spent fuel, noting that the owner of the damaged Unit 2 reactor also operates a fuel storage facility.
He asked a rapid-fire stream of questions about the restart plan.
"Is there a list of things that need to be rebuilt or replaced? … Where are you going to get the parts? You can't go to Pep Boys and pull it off the shelf," Epstein said.
He noted the surrounding farmland in Dauphin and Lancaster counties is home to Amish and Mennonite communities, of which many members don't drive or use modern communication devices.
"I hope you guys will take a look at that in terms of emergency planning," Epstein said.
Three Mile Island is one of three nuclear power plants that draw water from the Susquehanna River, Epstein said, claiming the demand of just two is equivalent to half the river's daily flow.
Earlier this month, Houston-based Talen Energy announced a $650 million deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a 1,200-acre property adjacent to the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear plant near Berwick. AWS expects to build out the site with data centers that would consume as much energy as 900,000 homes and require millions of gallons of cooling water each day.
While it's unclear whether the Microsoft data centers would be located near Three Mile Island, Epstein said his organization would sue to prevent additional water withdrawals from the Susquehanna..
"Where are we going to use the water? We're going to use it for farmers? We're going to use it for cleansing, or use it for hygiene, or are we going to use it for artificial intelligence?" Epstein said.
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