Constellation Energy plans to invest $1.6B to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania and sell all the output to Microsoft for AI energy demands.
Constellation Energy plans to invest $1.6B to revive the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania and sell all the output to Microsoft for AI energy demands.
Constellation described the agreement with Microsoft as the largest power purchase agreement that the nuclear plant operator has ever signed.
Three Mile Island was the worst nuclear accident in US history. Was mainly caused by poor design of human feedback systems which caused operational confusion and lead to a catastrophic failure.
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How dumb. Solar and Wind are SOO much cheaper per kWh than Nuclear and fossils. With them also comes the benefit of decentralisation. With 1.6B you could install so much more Watts of power with wind turbines and solar parks with the added benefit of less carbon and less nuclear waste and less chance of boom.
Not to mention that wind turbines and solar parks are faster to set up AND scalable. A nuclear plant is neither.
Interesting. What is the chance a nuclear plant goes boom? Sounds legit.
Very unlikely if maintained properly. The other facts are a lot more important. In addition to the most important one of WAY cheaper price per kWh (of Solar/Wind). And one medium important thing: Nuclear plants often rely on a river for cooling. If said river gets to warm/carries to little water the plant may have to shut down (happened a lot in France recently).
Very unlikely if maintained properly.
Well, are they? All of them?
Extremely. Like to levels you wouldn't believe. You need more paper work than a printer to be able to enter one. To work at one requires psych evals, tests, multiple background checks, and a whole pile of things.
There are often loads of armed guards, and surveillance everywhere.
You're only talking about security against threats here. I'm swiss and Switzerland is known for doing things extra thoroughly (and extra paperwork), right?
But then i hear from an ex-firefighter, how Mühleberg once nearly blowed up because the cooling channel was clogged with wood and debris after a record rain. How they had to cool the reactors with hoses and how it was hushed up on media (there are one or two short articles from small papers online).
Or how Beznau had used lower-quality steel in their pressure tank. How it had it's runtime prolonged, despite cracks in said tank.
Not to mention some german or french reactors.
Now imagine, how thoroughly the old and widespread, yet quite dangerous pressurised water reactors are secured against environmental factors or malfunction in, let's say, russia? Or egypt?
The main threats in nuclear reactors are age and human carelessnes.
Oh absolutely. The threats are often internal more than external. If the employees are careless or if there are contaminants, there could be consequences. Now not meltdown consequences but costing millions of dollar worth of damages and replacements.
I mean, I guess it might be cheaper to start up a nuclear plant again than to build a new solar/wind farm. There's also someone below who claims that nuclear is actually cheaper.