The Three Mile Island nuclear energy plant–the website the place an notorious partial nuclear meltdown occurred in 1979–might have a brand new proprietor quickly. Microsoft has signed a power purchase agreement with the present proprietor of the plant, Constellation, and the deal now must undergo regulators to be accepted. If profitable, Microsoft can have unique rights to 100% of the output from the plant for 20 years, which will probably be used to gas its AI information heart necessities.
Apparently, the plant is positioned subsequent to a unit that was shut down in 1979 after the Three-Mile Island accident, however it was retired in 2019. Microsoft will reopen it if the sale goes via, and it is anticipated to generate 837 megawatts of power, sufficient energy for greater than 800,000 properties.
In fact, this energy will probably be used for its AI ambitions and information facilities, initiatives that require huge quantities of assets to maintain the lights on. This new concentrate on AI has seen a rise in greenhouse fuel emissions from Microsoft, an organization that has beforehand pledged to scale back its carbon footprint, however the firm says the nuclear energy plant will assist it transition to wash power.
“This settlement is a significant milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to assist decarbonize the grid in help of our dedication to change into carbon detrimental,” Bobby Hollis, vice chairman of power at Microsoft stated (through The Verge). “Microsoft continues to collaborate with power suppliers to develop carbon-free power sources to assist meet the grids’ capability and reliability wants.”
Constellation plans to speculate $1.6 billion to revive the plant, pending approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Fee and different native companies.
Microsoft has beforehand spoken about its plans to closely put money into AI. Tim Stuart, the CFO of Xbox, lately spoke about how he expects AI to impression the way forward for gaming at Xbox and the corporate is growing an AI-powered chatbot for Xbox.