*

Restart work is expected to begin in Q1 2025

*

Constellation has ordered major equipment

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Microsoft ( MSFT ) would consider similar contracts to restart

nuclear

power plants

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Work includes refurbishing cooling towers and millions of

feet

of scaffolding

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Activists say they will challenge licensing for the plant

By Laila Kearney

THREE MILE ISLAND, Pennsylvania, Oct 22 (Reuters) -

G iant cooling towers at Constellation Energy's ( CEG ) Three

Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania have sat dormant for

so long that grass has sprung up in the towers' hollowed-out

bases and wildlife roam inside.

Armed guard stations at an entrance to the shut concrete

facility, surrounded by barbed wire, sit empty. The plant, which

would run so loud when operating that workers were required to

wear hearing protection, is nearly silent.

"It's still eerie walking in here and it's, just, quiet,"

Constellation regulatory assurance manager Craig Smith said

during a tour of the plant last week. Smith, who worked at Three

Mile Island when Constellation shut the site's remaining reactor

in 2019, is now preparing for a restart.

Constellation announced last month that it would revive the

half-century-old Three Mile Island with the purpose of fueling

Microsoft's ( MSFT ) data centers. Microsoft ( MSFT ) is expected to pay

at least $100 a megawatt-hour, nearly double the typical cost of

renewable energy in the region, as part of the 20-year power

contract.

The agreement shows the dramatic lengths Big Tech is willing

to go to procure electricity for its artificial intelligence

expansion and the undertaking by the U.S. power industry to meet

that demand.

The effort to restore Unit 1 at Three Mile Island is

expected to take four years, at least $1.6 billion, and

thousands of workers to complete the unprecedented task of

restarting a retired nuclear plant.

Constellation has already ordered costly equipment for the

site and identified fuel for the unit's reactor core, with work

expected to start early next year, according to Reuters'

interviews with company executives, contractors and a tour of

the site.

Successfully resurrecting Three Mile Island, which is widely

known for a 1979 partial meltdown that cast a pall over the U.S.

nuclear sector for decades, would put the plant at the front

edge of an industry revival.

Nuclear creates large amounts of carbon-free electricity.

That is attractive to companies, like Microsoft ( MSFT ), that have

climate pledges and face increasing public scrutiny for their

voracious power use.

Microsoft ( MSFT ) would consider signing other power purchase

agreements to restart shut plants, Alistair Speirs, senior

director of Microsoft's ( MSFT ) Azure Global Infrastructure, told

Reuters.

"I don't think anything's off the table," Speirs said.

Relaunching Three Mile Island would supply to the regional

grid 835 megawatts of electricity - enough for all of

Philadelphia's homes - to help offset Microsoft's ( MSFT ) power

consumption.

A restart of the plant, however, is not certain. Three Mile

Island, which will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Complex,

still requires licensing modifications and permitting. Local

activists have also vowed to fight the project over safety and

environmental concerns.

If the plan suffers the same lengthy delays and cost

overruns that have plagued nearly every nuclear build in the

country's history, it could stymie other deals and set back Big

Tech's quest to rapidly expand, power experts say.

MILLIONS OF FEET OF BUILDING

Earlier this year, Constellation finished initial testing of

the plant's Unit 1 to determine whether it was financially

reasonable to resurrect it.

After learning that the central generator, which would cost

hundreds of millions of dollars to replace, was in strong

condition, the company moved ahead with its plan.

"We have a perfectly ready-to-go main generator just waiting

for the rest of the plant to get started," said Smith, standing

in front of a row of massive turbines.

About a thousand carpenters, electricians, pipefitters and

other tradesmen are expected to be deployed to the site, said

Rob Bair, president of Pennsylvania Building Trades.

Work will likely start in the first quarter of 2025 with

restoring two 370-foot (113-m) high cooling towers, which were

stripped bare after the plant shut.

"There is a ton of equipment that has to go back in those

towers," said Bair, whose father helped build Unit 1, which

opened in 1974.

Workers will be hoisted up the top of the towers to install

lighting and restock the buildings from within. The structures'

bases, which were once made of redwood, will be refurbished with

modern materials.

Next, restorations inside of the plant will begin: some

major equipment will be replaced. Constellation recently ordered

the site's main transformer, which is expected to cost around

$100 million including installation, to be delivered in 2027.

Piping and electrical work, scrubbing condensers and

cleaning out power generators, will be among the next tasks. A

million-gallon tank will be filled with water.

Much of the analogue control room, with a panel installed in

the early 1970s, will stay the same. A benefit of keeping the

analogue system is that it would be more secure against

cyberattacks, officials said.

Completing the job will require several million feet of

scaffolding, built by scaffologists, or carpenters with special

licenses, to be assembled repeatedly around the island.

"And all of that has to be done before you can even put fuel

on the site," Bair said.

The company has commissioned the fuel design for the

reactor's core, said Constellation Chief Generation Officer

Bryan Hanson. The core holds the enriched uranium, the fuel

source for the plant, stacked in pellets and sealed in tubes.

Constellation, which is the biggest U.S. operator of nuclear

plants, will tap into fuel from its existing enriched uranium

reserves as one of the final steps before starting up.

The effort is part of a recent turnaround of U.S. nuclear

power, which suffered from competition from cheap fuel and fears

of meltdowns, said John Ciampaglia, CEO of Sprott Asset

Management, which manages a large physical uranium fund.

In Michigan, Holtec is in the process of trying to restart

another reactor site.

Constellation's stock price has soared by 135% so far this

year amid fresh projections for record U.S. power consumption

next year and a doubling of data center demand by 2030.

Not everyone is enthused about the prospect of a nuclear

comeback. The power plants produce waste that can remain

radioactive for thousands of years.

About a tennis court-size amount of spent nuclear fuel from

Unit 1 is stored on Three Mile Island, which sits on a strip of

land in the Susquehanna River. The decommissioning of Unit 2 is

still underway about 45 years after the partial meltdown.

Local activist Eric Epstein, who remembers the March 1979

incident, said he will fight Constellation's request to resume

operating and water use licenses.

"It's going to be a protracted battle," Epstein said.

The first chance for the challenges comes on Oct. 25, when

the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has scheduled its initial

public hearing on Constellation's plan to restart Unit 1.