#three miles island

[caffeinesam]

Do you remember Three Miles Island? Dubbed American Chernobyl? Like yeah sure they narrowly avoided a meltdown and the other reactors were operated until 2019.

Anyway.

Microsoft has it restart operations, strictly to power their AI servers. And they got the permit because they trained their fucking AI bot to handle nuclear regulatory paperwork.

We're losing the plot here!

[odinsblog]

i mean you do know every way of power generation has its risks but out of all of them, nuclear is the safest with the least number of deaths

[re: this post and this ask]

That’s a fucking lie. You’re regurgitating the preferred talking points of the nuclear power plant lobby.

Okay, let’s talk about risks, since YOU brought it up.

If a wind farm has a worst case accident, what are the risks associated with that? If a solar power plant has a worst case accident, will it irradiate an entire region for thousands and thousands of years? If a plant powered by ocean waves has a worst case accident, will it make a large region of the country completely unlivable for generations?? If a hostile nation attacks a wind farm, will the resulting damage cause nuclear fallout that could poison our drinking water and the food chain???

Hmm. 🤔

I guess we’ll never know, because according to you, anon, places like Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three Mile Island either don’t exist or it wasn’t nuclear’s fault for what happened.

Please don’t waste my time with any further lies and misinformation. Just because YOU, anon, are apparently enamored of the nuclear power lobby doesn’t mean that I am required to believe the same disinformation that you fell for.

[beadyeyes]

1983 Three Mile Island belt buckle

[histonics]

[todaysdocument]

Signs by South Bridge turnoff Highway 441

Record Group 220: Records of Temporary Committees, Commissions, and BoardsSeries: President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, March 29 - April 30, 1979

This color photograph shows a two lane highway bordered by trees and scrub.  A color sign for the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station is on the side of the road.

[thoughtportal]

Microsoft deal would reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power AI

Pennsylvania’s dormant Three Mile Island nuclear plant would be brought back to life to feed the voracious energy needs of Microsoft under an unprecedented deal announced Friday in which the tech giant would buy 100 percent of its power for 20 years.

The restart of Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, would mark a bold advance in the tech industry’s quest to find enough electric power to support its boom in artificial intelligence.The plant, which Pennsylvanians thought hadclosed for good in 2019 amid financial strain, would come back online by 2028 under the agreement, according toplant owner Constellation Energy.

If approved by regulators, Three Mile Island would provide Microsoft with the energy equivalent it takes to power 800,000 homes, or 835 megawatts. Never before has a U.S. nuclear plant come back into service after being decommissioned, and never before has all of a single commercial nuclear power plant’s output been allocated to a single customer.

But the economics of both the power and computing industries are changing rapidly. Tech companies are scouring the nation for power that is both reliable and helps them meet their pledge to fuel AI development with zero emissions electricity — driving a nuclear power revival.

“The energy industry cannot be the reason China or Russia beats us in AI,” said Joseph Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation. “This plant never should have been allowed to shut down, ... It will produce as much clean energy as all of the renewables [wind and solar] built in Pennsylvania over the last 30 years.”

Follow Climate & environment

The four-year restart plan would cost Constellation about $1.6 billion, he said, and is dependent on federal subsidies in the form of tax breaks earmarked for nuclear power in the 2022 Inflation Recovery Act.

Constellation will also need to clear steep regulatory hurdles, including intensive safety inspections from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has never before authorized the reopening of a plant. The deal also raises thorny questions about the federal tax breaks, as the energy from the plant would all be produced for a single private company rather than a utility serving entire communities.

A partial reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979 sent the nation into a panic and the nuclear industry reeling. The unit that Constellation plans to fire back up sits adjacent to the one that malfunctioned 45 years ago.

Constellation and Microsoft conceived the novel deal to solve a deepening energy problem. The sprawling data centers Microsoft and other digital giants need have become so big and energy-intensive that they are straining existing power supplies across the nation.

Constellation disclosed months ago that it was exploring options for restarting Three Mile Island, which sits along the Susquehanna River. The news was met with mixed reactions. Nuclear safety advocates expressed alarm. But some community leaders welcomed the development, seeing potential to revive an economic anchor in a region beset with financial hardship. A study funded by the Pennsylvania Building & Construction Trades Council says a reopening would create 3,400 jobs at the plant and in businesses serving it and its workers, and generate $3 billion in state and federal taxes.

The tax breaks in the Inflation Recovery Act are crucial to making the deal economically feasible, according to Constellation. They provide a credit for every megawatt hour of nuclear energy produced.

Constellation declined to provide details about its contract with Microsoft or disclose the value of tax credits. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm has said in the past that federal subsidies could cut the cost of bringing a new plant on line by as much as half.

The announcement of the Microsoft deal follows an agreement Amazon reached with Talen Energy to purchase power produced by the financially troubled Susquehanna nuclear plant for a planned data center campus in Pennsylvania. That arrangement is running into snags with regulators, as regional utilities express concern that their ratepayers will be saddled with the bill for the power grid updates needed.

Amazon’s plan also raised concerns among clean-energy advocates that tech companies are shifting from driving the transition to clean energy to elbowing others out of it by claiming such large amounts of available clean electricity for themselves.

Dominguez argues that the Three Mile Island case is an example of how Silicon Valley’s outside-the-box thinking will help stabilize the power grid for everyone. The power from the plant will not go directly to Microsoft facilities but into the overtaxed regional power grid that serves 65 million people across 13 states and the District of Columbia, called the PJM Interconnection.

Nuclear power is considered “clean” because unlike burning natural gas or coal to produce electricity, it does not create greenhouse gas emissions. The plants are expensive to build or restart, and industry still has no long-term solution for spent but highly radioactive uranium fuel rods.

“This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative,” said a statement from Bobby Hollis, vice president of energy at Microsoft.

Dominguez said other ratepayers on the PJM grid will not be expected to shoulder any of the costs, nor will Constellation be seeking special subsidies fromthe state of Pennsylvania.

Constellation has already been doing extensive testing at Three Mile Island.It says most of its components are ready to operate again. “The plant is in extraordinary shape,” Dominguez said.

Three Mile Island is not the only nuclear plant the industry is eager to revive. The owners of a plant in Western Michigan called Palisades are also working to bring that dormant facility back. That project was approved for a $1.5 billion federal loan guarantee. The plant owner, Holtec, says it hopes to feed nuclear energy from Palisades into the region’s power grid by late next year.

The Palisades effort came about at the urging of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), as her state struggles to both meet its climate goals and generate adequate energy. The plant was destined for permanent closure when Holtec acquired it in 2022. The company had planned to decommission the facility but changed course after conversations with the governor.

On Wednesday, though, that plan was dealt a setback when federal nuclear regulators disclosed “a large number of steam generator tubes” could be faulty and need further inspection. Holtec said the finding does not alter its plans. But some nuclear safety advocates argue the company’s push to quickly reopen the plant puts the public at risk.

The huge cost and regulatory headaches associated with nuclear power are not deterring the tech industry from betting on it. In a remarkable turn of fortune for an industry that just a few years ago was struggling to stay competitive and focused mostly on closing plants, it now finds itself in expansion mode. Beyond seeking contracts for power from existing plants, tech companies are also bullish on next generation nuclear technologies.

Several are investigating the potential of locating their facilities near small modular nuclear reactors that could feed them power directly. Such technology is in its infancy and has not yet been approved by regulators. That isn’t stopping a company chaired by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates from doubling down on it. The firm, called Terra Power, this year began construction at what it plans to be a small reactor site in site in Wyoming.

Microsoft is also pursuing power from nuclear fusion, a potentially abundant, cheap and clean form of electricity that scientists have been trying to develop for decades — and most say is still a decade or more away from generating electricity. Microsoft has signed a contract to purchase fusion energy from a start-up that claims it can deliver it by 2028.

correction

A previous version of this article misspelled the last name of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The article has been corrected.

[thethirdbear]

[canadiandogteeth]

Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant near Harrisburg, PA before the leakage of radioactive gases in late March 1979.

[daydreamerwonderkid]

Me, explaining how utterly useless Met Ed, the NRC, and the US government were in assuring the public that the Three Mile Island accident wasn't going to result in everyone getting absolutely annihilated with radiation sickness to my mom:

My mom: Oh, yeah, I was there when it happened. Our house was 15 miles away from Three Mile Island.

Me:

[mercury-lynx]

Me and my very normal special interests 🐛⛴️🪳☢️🐟🚢🪲

Wanted to post about these cause they are all very near and dear to my heart :3 most of these have been with me since child hood, I think the only one that hasn’t is the manhattan project (I’m interested in the science of it, not the actual weapons). I can talk about any of these give topics for HOURS on end <3

My field of expertises:

Ocean liners (specifically 1900s to 1950s)

Bulk cargo carriers (specifically roll on roll off classed vessels)

American nuclear power history (specifically three mile island and the anti nuclear movement)

Nuclear science (I only care about energy production)

Chemistry and quantum physics

Three mile island incident (all)

Renewable energy (nuclear reactors, wind farms, and dams)

Bugs :3 (any and all)

Other arthropods and crustaceans

(Mostly) fresh water fish (salmon, trout, sturgeon, catfish etc.)

Note: this doesn’t include my fixations, these have been with me my entire life (bugs, fish, ships, renewable energy, white star line), they have only gotten more specific with age :3

Im willing to talk about any of these with anyone, I get so happy sharping my knowledge and other fun facts related to these topics!! I would be cool to make friends with people that share my passion in any one of these fields 💕🐛

[allthegeopolitics]

Power-hungry generative AI models are quickly making Big Tech sizable energy requirements even more demanding and forcing companies to seek out energy from unlikely places. While Meta and Google are exploring modern geothermal tech and other newer experimental energy sources, Microsoft is stepping back in time. This week, the company signed a 20-year-deal to source energy from the storied Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, a site once known for the worst reactor accident in US history. If successful, the effort would breathe life back into the iconic symbol of US nuclear power and potentially provide Microsoft with around 800 megawatts of clean-burning energy to help satiate its growing energy appetite.

Continue Reading

[cerebrodigital]

🚨ATENCIÓN🚨

En 1979, una falla en el reactor de la Unidad 2 causó una fusión parcial en la planta de energía de Three Mile Island, provocando el peor accidente nuclear en la historia de Estados Unidos hasta la fecha. A pesar de esto, el lugar podría reabrir en 2028, y la razón ha generado polémica e incertidumbre entre los habitantes del país norteamericano y el resto del mundo.

Te explicamos por qué quieren reabrirla:

[kinsey3furry300]

So following a google rabbit-hole, the first recorded urban racoon populations was Cinncinati in the 1920's...

And due to Central park becoming A Hoover-Town tent-city in the 1930's displacing wildlife, and the lack of back-alleys in NY's central city grid (meaning trash goes on the sidewalk and can't be accessed by animals without people seeing) there were no urban Racoons in New York city until the 1950s?! And they weren’t exotic enough to go in zoo’s, and there was no TV, and the combination of Rascal and the Disney Davey Crocket show wouldn’t put them in the public consciousness until the 50’s, so if you were a New Yorker in the 40’s you’d probably live your entire life without ever seeing an actual Raccoon. Does.... does Cap just look at Rocket and think this is how all racoons are? Is he like "Huh, now I understand why hillbilly's have so much trouble with these things: they own a lot of guns." He’s smart enough to be able to tell this probably isn’t normal but did he have to ask someone “Is this just how Racoons are in the 21st century or did I miss something?” https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/raccoon-nation-raccoon-fact-sheet/7553/

[chargeaznable]

Got to love that the X-Men/Mutants are somehow involved in nearly every historical event.

[rjzimmerman]

Three Mile Island Plans to Reopen as Demand for Nuclear Power Grows. (New York Times)

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

In a striking sign of renewed interest in nuclear power, Constellation Energy said on Friday that it plans to reopen the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, the site of the worst reactor accident in United States history.

Three Mile Island became shorthand for the risks posed by nuclear energy after one of the plant’s two reactors partly melted down in 1979. The other reactor kept operating safely for decades until finally closing, for economic reasons, five years ago.

Now a revival is at hand. Microsoft, which needs tremendous amounts of electricity for its growing fleet of data centers, has agreed to buy as much power as it can from the plant for 20 years. Constellation plans to spend $1.6 billion to refurbish the reactor that recently closed and restart it by 2028, pending regulatory approval.

“The symbolism is enormous,” said Joseph Dominguez, chief executive of Constellation, the nation’s largest nuclear operator. “This was the site of the industry’s greatest failure, and now it can be a place of rebirth.”

Until recently, the U.S. nuclear industry seemed to be in permanent decline. Electric utilities closed 13 reactors between 2012 and 2022 in the face of competition from cheap natural gas and growing wind and solar power.

But with energy demand spiking and fears of climate change rising, many states and businesses are reconsidering nuclear power, which can produce electricity around the clock without emitting the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet.

Congress recently approved a tax credit aimed at keeping existing nuclear reactors running for years to come. In California, lawmakers reversed a decision to shut down the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. And in Michigan, Holtec International is looking to restart the Palisades nuclear plant, which closed in 2022.

[todaysdocument]

President Jimmy Carter leaving [Three Mile Island] for Middletown, Pennsylvania.

Record Group 220: Records of Temporary Committees, Commissions, and BoardsSeries: President's Commission on the Accident at Three Mile Island, March 29 - April 30, 1979

This color photograph shows crowds of people (mostly press) in front of a nuclear power plant.  Several large cooling towers are visible in the background.  Two police cars are escorting a presidential motorcade away from the scene.