Posted on 10/16/2026 7:13:20 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The United States is making an unprecedented attempt to revive three shuttered nuclear plants to meet rising energy demand, including from large-scale data centers.
No commercial nuclear reactor is known to have resumed generating electricity after beginning the decommissioning process that takes one out of service, though some reactors have restarted after long outages.
The Department of Energy is lending as much as $4.4 billion to restart the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, the Crane Clean Energy Center on Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island and the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa to restore a combined 2.25 gigawatts of electricity, which can power roughly 2 million homes and businesses. All three of the plants closed before their licenses expired, largely because the electricity they produced was considered too expensive.
Not anymore. Two of the plants have contracts with Big Tech companies that will pay a premium to get large amounts of carbon-free energy for data centers. The Trump administration is pushing hard to deploy nuclear power for artificial intelligence and manufacturing. It's also lending billions of dollars for upgrades to produce more electricity from currently operating nuclear plants.
Restarting a reactor is a fairly quick way to get a lot of electricity, and it's cheaper than building a new, large reactor, said nuclear engineering expert Todd Allen.
“There's a demand in the country for more power,” he said. “You have these assets that were previously hooked up. They were previously operable, and you can relatively quickly get them generating electricity again, compared to your other possibilities. For anyone who wants zero carbon, nuclear provides that. For the Trump administration, which really wants nuclear, this fits that story also.”
(Excerpt) Read more at channel3000.com ...
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GREAT!
Good news. The rats and the Hollywood creeps pretty much killed the development of nuclear power. We would be in a much better position if they were not successful.
Of course good news - but Democrats will be happy to shut it all down, as not a part of the “Green New Deal,” if/when they regain power, hopefully never...
You have my vote..
What a fiasco that shut down was.
Restarting those nuclear plants is just one more reason to support data centers.
Good. The planned shutdown of coal plants like Powerton near Peoria should be cancelled too.
However, I do agree with;
"Jack Spencer at The Heritage Foundation said he can't think of a worse use of taxpayer money than using it to restart reactors. These are low-risk projects where there is a massive demand for the energy, so there is no reason to funnel federal dollars to these companies, said Spencer, director of the foundation's Center for Energy, Climate and Environment."
Maybe loans if not available privately, but throwing taxpayer cash now, and ratepayer cash later, doesn't make sense.
Microsoft contracted for Three Mile Island power back in 2024.
A little late here but doesn’t hurt to get the word out.
Anti-electricity woowoos.
Were there banks willing to give the plants loans, knowing that in a Democrat administration those plants would have their operating license removed or have added scrutiny on their “environmental” impact?
The Biden administration took power plants offline and made the energy grid far less secure. This would represent progress in reversing that.
There is an uncompleted Plant in South Carolina.
Do the same for relatively new coal plants.
Data centers/SI=convid 2026. Panic now before we actually think about it!
" The Biden administration in 2024 approved a $1.5 billion loan to restart the facility, and the Trump administration continued the payments."
Drill more off the California coast. That’ll fry em’!
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