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  • Former Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to restart operations

    Former Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to restart operations

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    Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in the United States, is reopening and will exclusively sell power to Microsoft as the company searches for energy sources to fuel its AI ambitions.The former Three Mile Island power plant will restart the unit 1 nuclear reactor as part of a deal with Microsoft, the Constellation Energy Corporation announced Friday morning.The unit 1 reactor was shut down five years ago due to economic reasons. The restart comes as Microsoft signed a 20-year deal with Constellation to provide power for Microsoft’s data centers. Financial terms of the 20-year agreement, which Constellation called the largest ever, weren’t disclosed.The agreement paves the way for what the companies are calling the Crane Clean Energy Center.Constellation says they expect the refurbished power plant to be online in 2028.Restart planConstellation plans to make significant investments to restore:The plant’s turbineGeneratorMain power transformerCooling and control systemsRestarting a nuclear reactor requires:Approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory CommissionA thorough safety and environmental reviewPermits from relevant state and local agenciesConstellation will seek a license renewal to extend plant operations until at least 2054.Company leaders release statementsConstellation President and CEO Joe Dominguez | “Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise. … Before it was prematurely shuttered due to poor economics, this plant was among the safest and most reliable nuclear plants on the grid, and we look forward to bringing it back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania. We are especially honored to name this new plant after our former CEO Chris Crane, who was a fierce advocate for our business, devoting his entire career to the safe, reliable operation of our nation’s nuclear fleet, and we will continue that legacy at the Crane Clean Energy Center.”Microsoft VP of Energy Bobby Hollis | “This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative. Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grids’ capacity and reliability needs.”Why nuclear?Clean energy advocates and businesses alike are looking towards nuclear energy as a source of zero-carbon power that is a reliable baseload source. A big pro is that nuclear is able to stay on at all times of the day and night, unlike wind and solar.However, nuclear has drawn criticism for environmental groups for decades for its waste. The U.S. still has no permanent repository for that waste, instead storing it at over 70 operating and shuttered plants around the nation.Reopening of the Unit 1 reactor will add 3,400 direct and indirect jobs and add more than 800 megawatts of electricity to the grid, according to Constellation. It’s also expected to add $16 billion to Pennsylvania’s GDP, where the plant is located.History of Three Mile Island: America’s worst nuclear accidentVideo above: Archival video from 1979: Met-Ed officials announce partial meltdownThe Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Dauphin County partially melted down on March 28, 1979.A combination of equipment malfunctions, design-related problems, and worker errors led to the partial meltdown.The incident prompted major changes in:Emergency response planningOperator trainingRadiation protectionOther areas of nuclear power plant operationsThe U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission increased its oversight due to the incident.Unit 2 was permanently shut down after the accident.Cleanup officially ended in December 1993.CNN contributed to this report.

    LONDONDERRY TOWNSHIP, Pa. —

    Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear disaster in the United States, is reopening and will exclusively sell power to Microsoft as the company searches for energy sources to fuel its AI ambitions.

    The former Three Mile Island power plant will restart the unit 1 nuclear reactor as part of a deal with Microsoft, the Constellation Energy Corporation announced Friday morning.

    The unit 1 reactor was shut down five years ago due to economic reasons. The restart comes as Microsoft signed a 20-year deal with Constellation to provide power for Microsoft’s data centers.

    Financial terms of the 20-year agreement, which Constellation called the largest ever, weren’t disclosed.

    The agreement paves the way for what the companies are calling the Crane Clean Energy Center.

    Constellation says they expect the refurbished power plant to be online in 2028.

    Restart plan

    • Constellation plans to make significant investments to restore:
      • The plant’s turbine
      • Generator
      • Main power transformer
      • Cooling and control systems
    • Restarting a nuclear reactor requires:
      • Approval from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
      • A thorough safety and environmental review
      • Permits from relevant state and local agencies
    • Constellation will seek a license renewal to extend plant operations until at least 2054.

    Company leaders release statements

    Constellation President and CEO Joe Dominguez | “Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centers, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise. … Before it was prematurely shuttered due to poor economics, this plant was among the safest and most reliable nuclear plants on the grid, and we look forward to bringing it back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania. We are especially honored to name this new plant after our former CEO Chris Crane, who was a fierce advocate for our business, devoting his entire career to the safe, reliable operation of our nation’s nuclear fleet, and we will continue that legacy at the Crane Clean Energy Center.”

    Microsoft VP of Energy Bobby Hollis | “This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to help decarbonize the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative. Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grids’ capacity and reliability needs.”

    Why nuclear?

    Clean energy advocates and businesses alike are looking towards nuclear energy as a source of zero-carbon power that is a reliable baseload source. A big pro is that nuclear is able to stay on at all times of the day and night, unlike wind and solar.

    However, nuclear has drawn criticism for environmental groups for decades for its waste. The U.S. still has no permanent repository for that waste, instead storing it at over 70 operating and shuttered plants around the nation.

    Reopening of the Unit 1 reactor will add 3,400 direct and indirect jobs and add more than 800 megawatts of electricity to the grid, according to Constellation. It’s also expected to add $16 billion to Pennsylvania’s GDP, where the plant is located.

    History of Three Mile Island: America’s worst nuclear accident

    Video above: Archival video from 1979: Met-Ed officials announce partial meltdown

    • The Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Dauphin County partially melted down on March 28, 1979.
    • A combination of equipment malfunctions, design-related problems, and worker errors led to the partial meltdown.
    • The incident prompted major changes in:
      • Emergency response planning
      • Operator training
      • Radiation protection
      • Other areas of nuclear power plant operations
    • The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission increased its oversight due to the incident.
    • Unit 2 was permanently shut down after the accident.
    • Cleanup officially ended in December 1993.

    CNN contributed to this report.

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  • A robot begins removal of melted fuel from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant. It could take a century

    A robot begins removal of melted fuel from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant. It could take a century

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    A long robot entered a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant on Tuesday, beginning a two-week, high-stakes mission to retrieve for the first time a tiny amount of melted fuel debris from the bottom.The robot’s trip into the Unit 2 reactor is a crucial initial step for what comes next — a daunting, decades-long process to decommission the plant and deal with large amounts of highly radioactive melted fuel inside three reactors that were damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Specialists hope the robot will help them learn more about the status of the cores and the fuel debris.Here is an explanation of how the robot works, its mission, significance and what lies ahead as the most challenging phase of the reactor cleanup begins.What is the fuel debris?Nuclear fuel in the reactor cores melted after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s cooling systems to fail. The melted fuel dripped down from the cores and mixed with internal reactor materials such as zirconium, stainless steel, electrical cables, broken grates and concrete around the supporting structure and at the bottom of the primary containment vessels.The reactor meltdowns caused the highly radioactive, lava-like material to spatter in all directions, greatly complicating the cleanup. The condition of the debris also differs in each reactor.Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO, which manages the plant, says an estimated 880 tons of molten fuel debris remains in the three reactors, but some experts say the amount could be larger.What is the robot’s mission?Workers will use five 1.5-meter-long (5-foot-long) pipes connected in sequence to maneuver the robot through an entry point in the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel. The robot itself can extend about 6 meters (20 feet) inside the vessel. Once inside, it will be maneuvered remotely by operators at another building at the plant because of the fatally high radiation emitted by the melted debris.The front of the robot, equipped with tongs, a light and a camera, will be lowered by a cable to a mound of melted fuel debris. It will then snip off and collect a bit of the debris — less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce). The small amount is meant to minimize radiation dangers.The robot will then back out to the place it entered the reactor, a roundtrip journey that will take about two weeks.The mission takes that long because the robot must make extremely precise maneuvers to avoid hitting obstacles or getting stuck in passageways. That has happened to earlier robots.TEPCO is also limiting daily operations to two hours to minimize the radiation risk for workers in the reactor building. Eight six-member teams will take turns, with each group allowed to stay maximum of about 15 minutes.What do officials hope to learn?Sampling the melted fuel debris is “an important first step,” said Lake Barrett, who led the cleanup after the 1979 disaster at the U.S. Three Mile Island nuclear plant for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is now a paid adviser for TEPCO’s Fukushima decommissioning.While the melted fuel debris has been kept cool and has stabilized, the aging of the reactors poses potential safety risks, and the melted fuel needs to be removed and relocated to a safer place for long-term storage as soon as possible, experts say.An understanding of the melted fuel debris is essential to determine how best to remove it, store it and dispose of it, according to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.Experts expect the sample will also provide more clues about how exactly the meltdown 13 years ago played out, some of which is still a mystery.The melted fuel sample will be kept in secure canisters and sent to multiple laboratories for more detailed analysis. If the radiation level exceeds a set limit, the robot will take the sample back into the reactor.”It’s the start of a process. It’s a long, long road ahead,” Barrett said in an online interview. “The goal is to remove the highly radioactive material, put it into engineered canisters … and put those in storage.”For this mission, the robot’s small tong can only reach the upper surface of the debris. The pace of the work is expected to pick up in the future as more experience is gained and robots with additional capabilities are developed.What’s next?TEPCO will have to “probe down into the debris pile, which is over a meter (3.3 feet) thick, so you have to go down and see what’s inside,” Barrett said, noting that at Three Mile Island, the debris on the surface was very different from the material deeper inside. He said multiple samples from different locations must be collected and analyzed to better understand the melted debris and develop necessary equipment, such as stronger robots for future larger-scale removal.Compared to collecting a tiny sample for analysis, it will be a more difficult challenge to develop and operate robots that can cut larger chunks of melted debris into pieces and put that material into canisters for safe storage.There are also two other damaged reactors, Unit 1 and Unit 3, which are in worse condition and will take even longer to deal with. TEPCO plans to deploy a set of small drones in Unit 1 for a probe later this year and is developing even smaller “micro” drones for Unit 3, which is filled with a larger amount of water.Separately, hundreds of spent fuel rods remain in unenclosed cooling pools on the top floor of both Unit 1 and 2. This is a potential safety risk if there’s another major quake. Removal of spent fuel rods has been completed at Unit 3.When will the decommissioning be finished?Removal of the melted fuel was initially planned to start in late 2021 but has been delayed by technical issues, underscoring the difficulty of the process. The government says decommissioning is expected to take 30-40 years, while some experts say it could take as long as 100 years.Others are pushing for an entombment of the plant, as at Chernobyl after its 1986 explosion, to reduce radiation levels and risks for plant workers.That won’t work at the seaside Fukushima plant, Barrett says.”You’re in a high seismic area, you’re in a high-water area, and there are a lot of unknowns in those (reactor) buildings,” he said. “I don’t think you can just entomb it and wait.”

    TOKYO —

    A long robot entered a damaged reactor at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant on Tuesday, beginning a two-week, high-stakes mission to retrieve for the first time a tiny amount of melted fuel debris from the bottom.

    The robot’s trip into the Unit 2 reactor is a crucial initial step for what comes next — a daunting, decades-long process to decommission the plant and deal with large amounts of highly radioactive melted fuel inside three reactors that were damaged by a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Specialists hope the robot will help them learn more about the status of the cores and the fuel debris.

    Here is an explanation of how the robot works, its mission, significance and what lies ahead as the most challenging phase of the reactor cleanup begins.

    What is the fuel debris?

    Nuclear fuel in the reactor cores melted after the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami in March 2011 caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant’s cooling systems to fail. The melted fuel dripped down from the cores and mixed with internal reactor materials such as zirconium, stainless steel, electrical cables, broken grates and concrete around the supporting structure and at the bottom of the primary containment vessels.

    The reactor meltdowns caused the highly radioactive, lava-like material to spatter in all directions, greatly complicating the cleanup. The condition of the debris also differs in each reactor.

    Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO, which manages the plant, says an estimated 880 tons of molten fuel debris remains in the three reactors, but some experts say the amount could be larger.

    What is the robot’s mission?

    Workers will use five 1.5-meter-long (5-foot-long) pipes connected in sequence to maneuver the robot through an entry point in the Unit 2 reactor’s primary containment vessel. The robot itself can extend about 6 meters (20 feet) inside the vessel. Once inside, it will be maneuvered remotely by operators at another building at the plant because of the fatally high radiation emitted by the melted debris.

    The front of the robot, equipped with tongs, a light and a camera, will be lowered by a cable to a mound of melted fuel debris. It will then snip off and collect a bit of the debris — less than 3 grams (0.1 ounce). The small amount is meant to minimize radiation dangers.

    The robot will then back out to the place it entered the reactor, a roundtrip journey that will take about two weeks.

    The mission takes that long because the robot must make extremely precise maneuvers to avoid hitting obstacles or getting stuck in passageways. That has happened to earlier robots.

    TEPCO is also limiting daily operations to two hours to minimize the radiation risk for workers in the reactor building. Eight six-member teams will take turns, with each group allowed to stay maximum of about 15 minutes.

    What do officials hope to learn?

    Sampling the melted fuel debris is “an important first step,” said Lake Barrett, who led the cleanup after the 1979 disaster at the U.S. Three Mile Island nuclear plant for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and is now a paid adviser for TEPCO’s Fukushima decommissioning.

    While the melted fuel debris has been kept cool and has stabilized, the aging of the reactors poses potential safety risks, and the melted fuel needs to be removed and relocated to a safer place for long-term storage as soon as possible, experts say.

    An understanding of the melted fuel debris is essential to determine how best to remove it, store it and dispose of it, according to the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

    Experts expect the sample will also provide more clues about how exactly the meltdown 13 years ago played out, some of which is still a mystery.

    The melted fuel sample will be kept in secure canisters and sent to multiple laboratories for more detailed analysis. If the radiation level exceeds a set limit, the robot will take the sample back into the reactor.

    “It’s the start of a process. It’s a long, long road ahead,” Barrett said in an online interview. “The goal is to remove the highly radioactive material, put it into engineered canisters … and put those in storage.”

    For this mission, the robot’s small tong can only reach the upper surface of the debris. The pace of the work is expected to pick up in the future as more experience is gained and robots with additional capabilities are developed.

    What’s next?

    TEPCO will have to “probe down into the debris pile, which is over a meter (3.3 feet) thick, so you have to go down and see what’s inside,” Barrett said, noting that at Three Mile Island, the debris on the surface was very different from the material deeper inside. He said multiple samples from different locations must be collected and analyzed to better understand the melted debris and develop necessary equipment, such as stronger robots for future larger-scale removal.

    Compared to collecting a tiny sample for analysis, it will be a more difficult challenge to develop and operate robots that can cut larger chunks of melted debris into pieces and put that material into canisters for safe storage.

    There are also two other damaged reactors, Unit 1 and Unit 3, which are in worse condition and will take even longer to deal with. TEPCO plans to deploy a set of small drones in Unit 1 for a probe later this year and is developing even smaller “micro” drones for Unit 3, which is filled with a larger amount of water.

    Separately, hundreds of spent fuel rods remain in unenclosed cooling pools on the top floor of both Unit 1 and 2. This is a potential safety risk if there’s another major quake. Removal of spent fuel rods has been completed at Unit 3.

    When will the decommissioning be finished?

    Removal of the melted fuel was initially planned to start in late 2021 but has been delayed by technical issues, underscoring the difficulty of the process. The government says decommissioning is expected to take 30-40 years, while some experts say it could take as long as 100 years.

    Others are pushing for an entombment of the plant, as at Chernobyl after its 1986 explosion, to reduce radiation levels and risks for plant workers.

    That won’t work at the seaside Fukushima plant, Barrett says.

    “You’re in a high seismic area, you’re in a high-water area, and there are a lot of unknowns in those (reactor) buildings,” he said. “I don’t think you can just entomb it and wait.”

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