Three Mile Island, the shuttered Pennsylvania nuclear power plant that was the site of a 1979 reactor accident that remains the worst commercial nuclear power plant accident in U.S.history, is reopening to generate power for artificial intelligence.Constellation Energy will restart Three Mile Island Unit 1, one of the facility's pressurized water reactors, for the launch of the Crane Clean Energy Center, which will generate nuclear energy purchased by Microsoft to power the company's AI data center, the companies announced on Friday.MORE: Climate change could unearth, disturb Cold War-era nuclear waste buried by the US, officials sayUnder the agreement between the two companies, Microsoft will purchase energy from the plant as part of its goal to help power its data centers with carbon-free energy."This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft's efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative.
Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grids' capacity and reliability needs," said Microsoft Vice President of Energy Bobby Hollis in a statement.Steam rises out of the nuclear plant on Three Mile Island, with the operational plant run by Exelon Generation, in Middletown, Pennsylvania on March 26, 2019.Andrew Caballero-reynolds/AFP via Getty ImagesThe power purchase agreement "makes sense" because it ensures a stable revenue source for the power plant while providing 24/7 emission-free electricity for the data center, Jacopo Buongiorno, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), told ABC News.MORE: Chernobyl nuclear disaster altered the genetics of the dogs left behind, scientists sayThe move is also "further confirmation" of the economic and environmental value of using existing nuclear power plants to meet decarbonization goals in the U.S., Buongiorno said."Since building a new nuclear power plant can ...