U.S. Plans Massive Funding to Restart Three Decommissioned Nuclear Power Plants to Meet AI Computing Demand

Recently, the United States is experiencing an unprecedented wave of nuclear power restarts, with plans to revive three commercial nuclear power plants that have been shut down, in order to meet surging electricity demand and the computing power needs of large data centers.

The three nuclear power plants are the Palisades Nuclear Plant in Michigan, the Crane Clean Energy Center at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, and the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) will provide up to $4.4 billion in loan guarantees to restore a total of 2.25 gigawatts (GW) of stable electricity, equivalent to meeting the electricity needs of approximately 2 million households and businesses.

It is understood that all three nuclear power plants were previously closed before their licenses expired due to competitive disadvantages in electricity pricing. Now, with the explosive growth of artificial intelligence and cloud computing industries, technology giants are funding nuclear restarts through long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) to obtain round-the-clock carbon-free energy. For example, Microsoft has signed a 20-year purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to advance the planned restart of the Crane Clean Energy Center in 2027; Google has partnered with NextEra Energy to plan the restart of the Duane Arnold nuclear power plant in early 2029.

Experts point out that restarting existing grid-connected nuclear assets is the fastest and most economical way to obtain massive green electricity. Currently, the Palisades Nuclear Plant restart project led by Holtec International is progressing the fastest, having begun nuclear fuel loading in August of this year, and is expected to become the world's first commercial nuclear reactor to successfully resume power generation after initiating the decommissioning process.