Restarting a half-century old, disused reactor that has sat idle for eight years is fraught with unknowns and risks.
Cooling towers at the Crane Clean Energy Center at Constellation's nuclear power plant on Three Mile Island. June 25, 2025. Joe Hermitt | jhermitt@pennlive.comThough the name was changed to “Crane Clean Energy Center,” TMI-1 is still the twin facility of TMI-2, the same Babcock & Wilcox pressurized water reactor design, which in TMI-2’s case partially melted down in 1979, the worst nuclear accident in U.
S. history.” – long closed, obsolete, uncompetitive nuclear reactors owners propose to bring out of mothballs to supply power-hungry datacenters. If it comes online as planned in 2027, TMI-1 won’t make energy for Pennsylvania’s ratepayers, but for one, The rest of us will just bear the risks, costs, and impacts of this dangerous exercise of reanimating a zombie nuke.Designed to run only 40 years and shut down in 2014, its owners obtained a 20-year license extension, then complained they were losing money , even after demanding and getting aTMI remains a nuclear waste dump in our midst, with 700 tons of high-level, lethal radioactive waste stored on site, and more to come. Cleanup from the TMI-2 was. No human being has entered the basement since 1979. Highly radioactive waste from the restarted TMI-1 would be stored in an onsiteraided the ratepayer-financed $681 million decommissioning trust fund . Instead of cleaning up and dismantling TMI-2, most of that money went to reimburse Constellation’s spent fuel storage costs and effectively subsidize its operation of TMI-1. That’s an illegal use of the decommissioning fund, so in 2021 Constellation sought and obtained an exemption from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to allow it. If TMI-1 operates for another 20 years, it will put another 600 tons of lethal radioactive waste onto that parking lot dump. Constellation has a strong financial incentive to keep it there indefinitely. Since there is no geologic repository for permanent disposition of the waste, the U.S. Department of Energy pays Constellation millions each year to store the waste onsite. As of two years ago, these “Nuclear Waste Fund” payments to private operators totaled Restarting TMI-1 would suck up massive amounts of water from the Susquehanna River, a critical drinking water resource. The plantIt’s not the answer to Pennsylvania’s energy needs; it’s a cost center, a resource drain, a morass of risk, and it’s needless.? Why should Gov. Josh Shapiro pressure PJM to put TMI at the front of the line for new interconnection when there areNuclear power was always a Faustian bargain: expensive electricity for a moment, lethal radioactive waste for millennia. In this case, Pennsylvanians don’t even get the momentary benefit, Microsoft does. We get stuck with the costs, impacts, and risks. If state legislators want to serve our interest as opposed to tech giants’, they should prioritize finishing cleanup the TMI-2 meltdown from 46 years ago over restarting TMI-1.If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation.and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our
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