Nuclear Power

Zach Weissmueller | 9.26.2024 10:45 AM

Is a nuclear renaissance about to begin on the very site of the public relations catastrophe that practically destroyed the industry 45 years ago?

Constellation Energy recently announced a deal with Microsoft to restore a retired reactor on Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island. Microsoft has agreed to purchase energy from the plant for 20 years to power its AI data centers.

A U.S. nuclear reactor has never before been brought out of retirement.

Nuclear power was once considered the clean energy source of the future, with dozens of new plants coming online in the late '60s and early '70s.

But in March of 1979, a meltdown occurred at Three Mile Island's nuclear plant.

There were no casualties, and there was no lingering environmental damage. But the incident spooked the nation. From a publicity standpoint, the timing was disastrous—Three Mile Island occurred while The China Syndrome, a fictional account of safety cover-ups at a nuclear plant, was still in theaters, featuring Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, and Michael Douglas.

"After Three Mile Island, what was considered to be the best interest of the public was just reducing risk to as low as possible," says Adam Stein, director of the Nuclear Energy Innovation Program at the Breakthrough Institute. "It resulted in a huge volume of regulations that anybody that wanted to build a new reactor had to know. It made the learning curve much steeper to even attempt to innovate in the industry."

It was a public relations disaster for the........

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