By Timothy Gardner and Laila Kearney
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) said on Friday it has not yet received an application from Constellation Energy to restart the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor.
Constellation and Microsoft (NASDAQ:) have signed a deal to build a data center that will help restart a reactor at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, by 2028. The reactor has been shut down since 2019.
“At this point we don't have anything to submit in terms of an application. It's up to Constellation to make its case for the restart, so we're prepared to talk to the company about next steps,” NRC spokesman Scott Burnell said.
Constellation said it planned to submit a permit application but did not immediately specify a timeline for doing so. “We anticipate the NRC review will be completed in 2027,” a company spokesman said.
Nuclear power advocates complain that the NRC is taking too long to review licenses, and a law signed by President Joe Biden this year aims to help fix that problem. But as energy demand soars for the first time in decades, the NRC is considering a number of applications for new high-tech nuclear reactors and one application for a decommissioned reactor in Michigan called Palisades that, if approved, could be the first U.S. reactor to come back online after a restart.
Burnell said the NRC will use existing review processes to consider any license for TMI. Some opponents of quickly reopening closed nuclear plants have filed a petition with the NRC saying the agency should adopt new rules for such cases since no closed U.S. nuclear plant has ever been resurrected.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod? n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;n.queue=();t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)(0);s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,’https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
