Microsoft to ‘lease’ US nuclear power plant to power AI servers

Microsoft reaches 20-year power supply deal Three Mile Island nuclear power plant, In the United States. The location will be used to power the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) servers.

Microsoft’s idea is this “Lease” the entire operation of Unit 1 of the facilityIt has a power supply of around 835 megawatts, enough to power around 800,000 homes. The energy will be distributed to data centres in North America in Chicago, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio, and is also expected to create around 3,400 direct and indirect jobs in the process.

The deal has been approved by Constellation, the current owner of the facility, but is still subject to regulatory approval. If all the red tape is cleared, The reactor will only start operating in 2028Microsoft’s idea is to power its AI servers from cleaner energy sources, including the use of nuclear power plants.

Three Mile Island

Three Mile Island factory to be renamed under new management Vinc Clean Energy CenterIt was named after one of the site’s former directors, CEO Chris Crane, who passed away in April this year and was considered a reference in the nuclear industry.

Unit 1, which would be included in the deal with Microsoft, has been closed for five years “for economic reasons” and is close to Unit 2, the reactor that was shut down in 1979. After the worst nuclear accident in US history and is still in the process of being dismantled.

On March 28, 1979, the Unit 2 reactor suffered a partial meltdown after the water supply to the turbines was cut off. At least thirty thousand people living in the vicinity of the nuclear power plant – primarily in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania – “certain levels of radioactivity“.

However, the effects of the accident were never fully explained, although there was a suspected increase in cancer and leukemia cases in the years after the incident.

Recovering a stopped volume Constellation requires $1.6 billion investmentThe company’s idea is to maintain the new unit, which is completely independent and has no direct connection to the troublesome reactor. at least until 2054.