The Trump administration is issuing a $1 billion loan to refurbish a nuclear power plant on Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island that has been offline for five years.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced Tuesday that it will help finance the Crane Clean Energy Project, supporting Constellation Energy in its effort to revive Three Mile Island Unit 1. Constellation Tech is working with Microsoft to help offset the company’s rising carbon emissions, largely caused by the data centers being used to power the artificial intelligence boom.
bringing it back
The Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor was shut down in 2019 after the state legislature failed to pass a bill that would have continued subsidizing the plant. The plant was closed after 40 years when a cooling failure caused the Unit 2 reactor to partially melt down, releasing radiation into the environment. At the time, in addition to prompting stricter safety measures and testing, the incident negatively affected public confidence in nuclear energy.
According to Constellation, before going offline, the Unit 1 nuclear reactor had a generating capacity of 837 megawatts, enough to power 800,000 homes using carbon-free energy. The Maryland-based company last year announced a deal with Microsoft to recommission the nuclear power plant, with the tech giant set to buy energy from the reactor to help meet the growing demands of its data centers.
Microsoft has come under scrutiny for expanding its data centers due to the increasing demand for large-scale AI models. Building new facilities has increased Microsoft’s carbon emissions by 23.4% since 2020, according to the company’s environmental sustainability report. The Guardian reported in 2024 that Microsoft’s data centers were responsible for between 280,782 metric tons and 6.1 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent emissions in 2022.
The Energy Department loan will partially finance the reopening of the constellation’s power plant as part of its agreement with Microsoft, reflecting renewed interest in nuclear power at a time when AI data centers are increasing carbon emissions.
“Restarting a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania will provide affordable, reliable and secure energy to Americans in the Mid-Atlantic region,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a statement. “It will also help ensure the US has the energy needed to grow its domestic manufacturing base and win the AI race.”