US pumps $1B into Three Mile Island nuclear plant reboot to keep AI datacenters fed

The Trump administration is so eager to get extra power into the grid that it is offering a $1 billion loan to Constellation Energy to help it restart the infamous Three Mile Island nuclear facility.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced the move on Tuesday, claiming that the funding from the Department of Energy's (DOE) Loan Programs Office would lower electricity costs and strengthen grid reliability.

One of the beneficiaries of this move is likely to be Microsoft. The IT giant last year signed a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Constellation for electricity produced by the plant, now known as the Crane Clean Energy Center, as part of efforts to decarbonize the operation of its datacenters by securing "green" energy sources.

That deal, announced in September 2024, is to restart the TMI Unit 1 reactor, which was retired from service in 2019 but never fully decommissioned. It is ...