Microsoft needs Three Mile Island to gasoline its AI energy wants

World Courant

Microsoft simply signed a deal to revive the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant. If authorised by regulators, the software program maker would have unique rights to 100% of the output for its AI information middle wants.

Constellation, the proprietor of the Three Mile Island plant, introduced an influence buy settlement with Microsoft earlier at this time, which ought to see the positioning coming again on-line in 2028, assuming regulators approve it.

The reactor that Microsoft plans to supply its vitality from was retired in 2019 for financial causes, and is situated subsequent to a unit that was shut down in 1979 after the worst US nuclear accident in historical past. The plant that Constellation plans to reopen can generate 837 megawatts of vitality, sufficient to energy greater than 800,000 properties — demonstrating the large quantity of energy wanted for information facilities and Microsoft’s AI ambitions.

Microsoft has agreed to buy energy from the plant — which will probably be renamed the Crane Clear Vitality Heart to honor the late Chris Crane, former CEO of Exelon — for 20 years in a primary of its type deal for the software program large.

Microsoft’s personal greenhouse gasoline emissions are rising with its give attention to AI, placing its formidable local weather objectives in danger. Bloomberg studies that this nuclear plant would assist Microsoft’s plans to run its information facilities on clear vitality by 2025, and energy information middle expansions in Chicago, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

“This settlement is a serious milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to assist decarbonize the grid in help of our dedication to grow to be carbon detrimental,” says Bobby Hollis, vice chairman of vitality at Microsoft. “Microsoft continues to collaborate with vitality suppliers to develop carbon-free vitality sources to assist meet the grids’ capability and reliability wants.”

Microsoft has been betting on next-generation nuclear reactors to energy its information middle and AI plans not too long ago, in search of somebody who might roll out a plan for small modular reactors (SMR) final yr. Microsoft co-founder Invoice Gates can also be a “huge believer that nuclear vitality can assist us remedy the local weather downside.”

Constellation will make investments $1.6 billion to revive the plant, and the corporate will want approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Fee to carry the positioning again on-line, alongside permits from state and native companies. Constellation can also be pursuing a license renewal to increase plant operations till at the very least 2054.

Microsoft needs Three Mile Island to gasoline its AI energy wants

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