In 1979, the Three Mile Island nuclear plant came to embody Americans’ fears about atomic energy, after one of its two reactors partially melted down in what became the worst accident in the U.S. industry’s history, despite no one dying or getting sick from radiation.
Now the Londonderry, Pennsylvania, facility could become a symbol of nuclear power’s turnaround.
In a landmark deal announced Friday, Microsoft agreed to pay $16 billion to restart the plant’s second reactor, which shut down in 2019 under financial pressure from growing competition with cheap natural gas. It’s part of the tech giant’s efforts to secure enough reliable, low-carbon electricity to supply energy-thirsty data centers powering the boom in artificial intelligence…