“End Nuclear Insanity Before Nuclear Insanity Ends Humanity”
Oct 03, 2024
Another view of Three Mile Island nuclear power plant. (See image credits in the article)
LLAW’s NUCLEAR VIEWS, ISSUES & COMMENTS, Thursday, (10/03/2024)
This is the follow-up related article to my blog post from yesterday, which was also available on yesterday’s NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS section on this daily blog. If you read yesterday’s post, this article will give you a better understanding of this story, also from “Scientific American”.
The original version, from “Nature”, of the article was also posted here on October 1st. Tomorrow we will get our posts back in order so far as timely dates are concerned. Hopefully, though, we should have a better understanding of AI and its relationship to its consumption of electricity in general and to nuclear power plants specifically . ~llaw
October 2, 2024
5 min read
Power-Thirsty AI Turns to Mothballed Nuclear Plants. Is That Safe?
As Microsoft strikes a deal to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island to power AI, nuclear specialists weigh in on the unprecedented process
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Artificial Intelligence
Microsoft announced on 20 September that it had struck a 20-year deal to purchase energy from a dormant nuclear power plant that will be brought back online. And not just any plant: Three Mile Island, the facility in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, that was the site of the worst-ever nuclear accident on US soil when a partial meltdown of one of its reactors occurred in 1979.
The move, which symbolizes technology giants’ need to power their growing artificial-intelligence (AI) efforts, raises questions over how shuttered nuclear plants can be restarted safely — not least because Three Mile Island isn’t the only plant being brought out of retirement.
Palisades Nuclear Plant, an 805-megawatt facility in Covert, Michigan, was shut down in May 2022. But the energy company that owns it, Holtec International, based in Jupiter, Florida, plans to reopen it. This reversal in the facility’s fortunes has been bolstered by a US$1.5-billion conditional loan commitment from the US Department of Energy (DoE), which sees nuclear plants — a source of low-carbon electricity — as a way of helping the country to meet its ambitious climate goals. The Palisades plant is on track to reopen in late 2025.
“It’s the first time something like this has been attempted, that we’re aware of, worldwide,” says Jason Kozal, director of the reactor safety division at a regional office of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in Naperville, Illinois, and the co-chair of a regulatory panel overseeing the restart of Palisades.
Here, Nature talks to nuclear specialists about what it will take to restart these plants and whether more are on the way as the world’s demand for AI grows.
A change in fortunes
Since 2012, more than a dozen nuclear plants have been shut down in the United States, in some cases as a result of unfavourable economics. Less cost-effective plants — such as those with only a single working reactor — struggled to remain profitable in states with deregulated electricity markets and widely varying prices. Three Mile Island, owned by the utility company Constellation Energy in Baltimore, Maryland, is a prime example. Today, 54 US plants remain in operation, running a total of 94 reactors.
Nuclear energy, which accounts for about 9% of the world’s electricity, has seen some resurgence internationally, but is also competing with other energy sources, including renewables. After the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Japan suspended operations at all of its 48 remaining nuclear plants, but these are gradually being brought back online, in part to cut dependence on gas imports. By contrast, Germany announced a phase-out of its nuclear plants in 2011, and shut down its last three in 2023.
In the United States, nuclear energy’s fortunes might be turning as technology companies race to build enormous, energy-gobbling data centres to support their AI systems and other applications while somehow fulfilling their climate pledges. Microsoft, for instance, has committed to being carbon negative by 2030.
“It’s further confirmation of the value of nuclear, and, if the deal is right — if the price is right — then it makes business sense, as well,” says Jacopo Buongiorno, the director of the Center for Advanced Nuclear Energy Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
A new start
This isn’t the first time that the United States has brought a powered-down reactor back online. In 1985, for example, the Tennessee Valley Authority, a federally owned electric utility company, took the reactors at its Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant in Athens, Alabama, offline. After years of refurbishment, they were brought back online, with the final reactor restarted in 2007.
The cases of Palisades and Three Mile Island are different, however. When those plants closed, their then-owners made legal statements that the facilities would be shut down, even though their operating licenses were still active. Three Mile Island, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center under the proposed restart, shut down its single remaining functional reactor in 2019.
Because the plants were slated for shutdown and safety checks were therefore stopped, regulators and companies must now navigate a complex licensing, oversight and environmental-assessment process to reverse the plants’ decommissioning.
Safety checks will be needed to ensure, among other things, that the plants can operate securely once uranium fuel rods have been replaced in their reactors. When these plants were decommissioned, their radioactive fuel was removed and stored, so the facilities no longer needed to adhere to many exacting technical specifications, says Jamie Pelton, also a co-chair of the Palisades restart panel, and a deputy director at the NRC’s Office of Nuclear Reactor Regulation in Rockville, Maryland.
It will be no small feat to reinstate those safety regulations: to meet the standards, infrastructure will need to be inspected carefully. According to Buongiorno, any metallic components in the plants that have corroded since the shutdowns, including wires and cables used in instrumentation and controls, will need to be replaced.
The plants’ turbine generators, which make electricity from the steam produced as the plants’ fuel rods heat up water, will also get a close look. After sitting dormant for years, a turbine could develop defects within its shaft or corrosion along its blades that would require refurbishment. In the case of Palisades, the NRC announced on 18 September that the plant’s steam generators would need further testing and repair, following inspections conducted by Holtec.
Nuclear’s prospects
As the plants near their restart dates, their operators will also have to contend with a challenge faced by even fully operational plants: the need to source fresh nuclear fuel. US nuclear utility companies have long counted on the international market to buy much of the necessary raw yellowcake uranium and the services that separate and enrich uranium-235, the isotope used in nuclear reactors’ fuel rods. Russia has been a major international supplier of these services, even after the country’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, because US and European sanctions have not targeted nuclear fuel. But to minimize its reliance on Russia, the United States is building up its own supply chain, with the DoE offering $3.4 billion to buy domestically enriched uranium.
There probably won’t be too many other restarts of mothballed nuclear plants in the United States, however, even as demand for low-carbon electricity grows. Not every US plant that has been shut down is necessarily in good enough condition to be easily refurbished — and the idea of reopening some of those would meet with too much resistance. As an example, Buongiorno points to New York’s Indian Point Energy Center, which was closed in 2021. The plant’s proximity to New York City had long provoked criticism from nuclear-safety advocates.
But that doesn’t mean that all of these sites will remain unused. One option is to build advanced reactors — including large reactors with upgraded safety features and small modular reactors with innovative designs — on sites where old nuclear plants once stood, to take advantage of existing transmission lines and infrastructure. “We might see interest in the US in building more of these large reactors, whether that’s fuelled by data centres or some other applications,” Buongiorno adds. “Utilities and customers are exploring this at the moment.”
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on September 30, 2024.
Michael Greshko is a freelance science journalist based in Washington, D.C., and a former staff science writer at National Geographic. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Science, Atlas Obscura, MIT Technology Review and elsewhere. Follow Greshko on social media here.
Curated by Our Editors
- The AI Boom Could Use a Shocking Amount of ElectricityLauren Leffer
- What Is the Future of Fusion Energy?Philip Ball
- Safer Nuclear Reactors Are on the WayMark Fischetti
- Radioactive Robot: The Machines That Cleaned Up Three Mile IslandDaniel Lovering
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TODAY’S NUCLEAR WORLD’S NEWS, Thursday, (10/03/2024)
All Things Nuclear
NEWS
Israel’s options as it wages wars on multiple fronts | 90.5 WESA
90.5 WESA
All Things Considered. Next Up: 6:30 PM Marketplace. 0:00. 0:00. All Things … And third, Israel could target Iran’s nuclear facilities, something …
Reflections on Nuclear War and Immigration – The Future of Freedom Foundation
The Future of Freedom Foundation
… about nuclear war in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Everything worked out, they say, and so the fears of all-out nuclear war between the …
Israel’s options as it wages wars on multiple fronts – Public Radio Tulsa
Public Radio Tulsa
Next Up: 4:00 PM All Things Considered. 0:00. 0:00. Fresh Air. KWGS Public … And third, Israel could target Iran’s nuclear facilities, something …
Nuclear Power
NEWS
Nuclear Power Is Finally Gaining Favor—But It Won’t Replace Fossil Fuels Anytime Soon
YouTube
Steve Forbes explains why nuclear power is finally being embraced by industry and even some major governments as an alternative to traditional …
Nuclear Power Is Gaining Favor—But It Won’t Replace Fossil Fuels Anytime Soon – Forbes
Forbes
Microsoft’s recent announcement that it has inked a 20-year deal to buy power from a retired nuclear reactor at the notorious Three Mile Island …
Corrosion exceeds estimates at Michigan nuclear plant US wants to restart, regulator says
Reuters
Holtec, the company wanting to reopen the Palisades nuclear reactor in Michigan, found corrosion cracking in steam generators “far exceeded” …
Nuclear Power Emergencies
NEWS
Stonington drill prepares for nuclear emergency – theday.com
theday.com
Millstone houses two nuclear reactors. The first went into service in 1975 and the second in 1986. Dominion Energy purchased the plant in 2000.
The Russian army struck energy facilities in several regions: what is the aftermath? – ТСН
ТСН
It is noted that from 10:15 a.m., emergency power outages … Energy workers have restored the power line to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant …
Energy workers restored the power line to ZNPP – all the latest news today – 112.ua
112
… power transmission line that supplies power to the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. … emergency situations. Let us remind …
Nuclear War
NEWS
Putin Keeps Threatening to Use Nuclear Weapons. Would He? – The New York Times
The New York Times
On Sept. 13, he said that if NATO countries enable Ukraine to use long-range “precision weapons” to hit targets inside Russia, they would be “at war …
Europe Shrugs Off Russia’s Latest Nuclear Threats – Time
Time
The saber rattling from Russia has come hard and fast in recent days, but European leaders barely seemed to flinch.
Biden says Israel shouldn’t strike Iranian nuclear sites, but US officials recognize it has a … – CNN
CNN
President Joe Biden is counseling Israel to take a proportional response to this week’s barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles, voicing opposition …
Nuclear War Threats
NEWS
Europe Shrugs Off Russia’s Latest Nuclear Threats – Time
Time
Through its escalating threats of nuclear war, Russia has tried to stop Western countries from supporting Ukraine, particularly when it comes to …Flag as irrnt
How Serious a Threat Is Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine?
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
How Serious a Threat Is Russia’s New Nuclear Doctrine? … Russia continued to threaten the West with a high price for intervention in the war …
Putin Keeps Threatening to Use Nuclear Weapons. Would He? – The New York Times
The New York Times
He said Russia would be prepared to use a nuclear weapon in response to an attack with conventional weapons that creates a “critical threat to our ..
Yellowstone Caldera
NEWS
Biscuit Basin Hydrothermal Explosion Update (Yellowstone Monthly Update — October 2024)
YouTube
… yellowstone/caldera-chronicles?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=usgs-main&utm_campaign=nh-volcanoes-fy25 Visit Yellowstone Volcano Observatory …
Taal Volcano (Luzon Island, Philippines): Five Minor Phreatic Bursts Yesterday
Volcano Discovery
… caldera between 01:10 AM and 04:37 PM yesterday. The … List and interactive map of current and past earthquakes near Yellowstone volcano.