Moves are underway to bring three nuclear facilities back online — each of them having already entered a decommissioning process. Powering large data centres and a range of industrial operations has placed growing strain on electricity networks, and the programme is designed to meet that pressure.
Up to $4.4 billion in federal energy funding has been directed toward three reactor sites slated for reactivation — the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, the Crane Clean Energy Centre at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island, and the Duane Arnold Energy Centre in Iowa — with the Department of Energy administering the awards. Taken together, those facilities hold a rated output of 2.25 gigawatts — enough to meet the electricity needs of around two million homes and businesses.
No commercial nuclear plant that has formally shut down for good has ever returned to generating power, though some facilities have come back online after extended periods of inactivity. All three installations were taken offline ahead of their licensing deadlines, with the electricity each produced proving too costly to compete in the market.
Agreements with well-known technology firms — both willing to pay above the going rate for large quantities of carbon-free electricity to power their data centres — have been secured by two of those plants. Nuclear energy has drawn backing from the administration as a power source suited to the demands of artificial intelligence and manufacturing, with federal dollars directed toward capacity upgrades at plants already in operation.
Restarting a dormant reactor generally takes less time and money than constructing a new one from the ground up, nuclear engineering specialist Todd Allen has noted. Drawing a parallel to a dormant engine being coaxed back to life, he noted that the procedure, though intricate, remained well within reach.
Bringing a shuttered nuclear facility back online demands a coordinated sequence of steps: assembling a qualified workforce, refreshing operator training, conducting thorough equipment inspections, arranging a reliable fuel supply chain, and obtaining fresh authorisation from the relevant regulatory body.
Taxpayer money directed toward nuclear safety concerns was the focus of remarks made by Edwin Lyman, who heads nuclear power safety work at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Most of the reactors now operating across the United States took shape during the 1970s and 1980s, and the hazard tolerances built into their designs reflected what engineers at the time viewed as the realistic outer limits of natural risk. Lyman pointed to the growing toll that intensifying weather patterns are taking on infrastructure, calling for both stronger protective measures and dedicated funding to bring these plants back online.
Generating power from 1975 onward, the Duane Arnold plant held the distinction of being Iowa's only nuclear facility before its scheduled decommissioning took effect in October 2020. A storm caused damage that led to its shutdown in August 2020, ahead of the later closure. A restart date of early 2029 sits at the centre of a joint effort between NextEra Energy, which holds ownership of the plant, and Google. Positive assessments of the facility's current state and the practicality of bringing it back into operation were put forward by the company.
Having run from 1971 through its 2022 shutdown, Palisades now stands at a more advanced stage of the reactivation effort than the other plants. When Entergy withdrew from nuclear power generation, Holtec International assumed control of the plant and dismantlement operations began. None of those measures adopted to date carry the weight of permanence. Backed by a federal loan of $1.5 billion, the plant advanced toward renewed operation, with Holtec now deep into the process of loading nuclear fuel.
Three Mile Island — whose name carries the weight of a 1979 reactor accident — houses the Crane Clean Energy Centre, a facility now under consideration for reactivation. When Exelon still held ownership, mounting financial losses prompted the shutdown of its last operational reactor in 2019. Constellation Energy put forward a $1.6 billion commitment to bring the reactor back online, drawing on a $1 billion loan extended by the Energy Department, with the full package taking shape during 2024. Plans call for the site to return to full operation sometime during 2027.
