Constellation submitted a license renewal application for Clinton Clean Energy Center to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on Feb. 14, 2024. That application is currently under review.
More news on the restarting of formerly retired nuclear power plants. Demand for electric power is increasing in the US. Power companies are seeking to increase capacity in any way they can.
NextEra plans to restart the Duane Arnold plant in Iowa.
From the link:
**"In response to then-prevailing market conditions following the decommissioning of Duane Arnold in 2020, \[the plant's\] original interconnection rights were divided to support the prospective development of multiple solar generating facilities," NextEra noted in its FERC filing. "Since that time, there has been an unprecedented increase in electrical demand from commercial and industrial customers, with an emphasis on high-capacity, reliable, low-emissions power."**
The company said that instead of developing a solar energy project at the site, it now plans to “reaggregate Duane Arnold’s original interconnection rights to accelerate the recommissioning of the facility”.
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Meanwhile, Holtec is progressing in restarting the Palisades plant in Michigan. The NRC recently approved some regulatory actions which allow the plant to return to an active status.
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Much of the increase in demand is due to the increased power needs of running AI computer systems, as well as other data center requirements. Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon, are all investing in capacity additions. Here are a few other news stories…
And…
_ Pete
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That’s what I was thinking. There won’t be any permit problems, or other “impact” studies, because it’s already built. Everything is done. It would be very cost-effective to simply update the machinery as needed (e.g. modern computers), and start running again.
I may have missed it, but did anyone mention “crypto mining”? The projections I’ve seen on the power requirements for that are scary. Probably not why Microsoft would want to restart a reactor, but other posters were commenting on demands on the power grid, and that it one source.
Get it before this Administration removes it because it doesn’t fit their narrative; article is over a year old.
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I am skeptical about these investments when solar and wind are by far cheaper sources of electricity. If it wasn’t for some conservative, politicians then we could go on with solar and wind. Texas is still doing solar and wind even with their politicians.
They’re far cheaper sources of intermittent or marginal (meaning additional) electricity. They’re not far cheaper if you need to provide a new, constant supply of electricity - creating additional baseload as opposed to peaker electricity.
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The tech companies want carbon free and they need 24/7.
FWIW, there is a datacenter construction boom in the upper Midwest in part because of lots of cheap wind energy.
In order the counteract the intermittent nature of wind and solar, it’s a shame we haven’t been able to come up with a way to store the “excess” energy these generate so that it could be provided off-cycle…….
Pete
We have. It’s called “batteries.” (yes, I know you know that).
But once you add batteries to the equation, the cost structure changes. You have the cost of the batteries. And the extra generating power needed to charge the batteries when empty.
It may be cheap if we include all of the subsidies available to the wind power industry, but the wind still doesn’t blow consistently enough. Let’s look at Iowa, right in the middle of the upper Midwest.
From the EIA yearly summary, (Tables 1.14.B and 6.2.B). At the end of 2023, there were 12,804 MW of installed wind capacity in Iowa. During 2024, Iowa wind farms produced 44,306,000 MWh.
(44,306,000 MWh) / (12,804 MW x 24 h/d x 366 days) = 39.4% capacity factor
A CF of 39.4% is a little better than the US overall, which was 34.3% in 2024. Compare that to nuclear, which was 92.3% for 2024.
In addition to the Duane Arnold nuclear plant in Iowa, Meta recently signed a deal to purchase electricity from the currently running Clinton nuclear plant in Illinois.
_Pete
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Hence my comment that they want carbon free but need 24/7.
Wrong! Solar and wind with battery back up are fine. The batteries serve as peaker generation among many other functions. And solar + batteries and wind + batteries provide much cheaper electricity than nuclear or coal.
It’s not that they’re not “fine.” It’s that they are more expensive than just “solar and wind” without battery back-up.
Solar and wind are cheap ways of generating energy if you’re modestly indifferent as to when the energy is generated. They are much more expensive if you need that energy to be continuous.
Per the interwebs, Unit 1 of Three Mile Island has a capacity of about 837 MW. It would be cheaper to install 837 MW of solar/wind capacity than to refurbish/buy 3MI. But you can’t provide 837 MWhr every hour of every day with 837 MW of solar/wind capacity alone, because (obviously) night and still air. Assuming 12 hours on and 12 hours off for generation (day/night just to simplify) would need about 10GWhr of grid-scale battery - which at about $300/kWh for grid-scale batteries, is a little over $3 billion. But since solar doesn’t work well on a deeply cloudy/rainy day, and you’re guaranteed to get at least one such day, you need to have enough back-up capacity to cover 36 hours - two nights and a cloudy day in-between. About $10 billion. Almost cheaper to just build a new nuclear power plant as the backup at that point.
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I’m still waiting for someone to show me just one, large industrial city that gets 100% of its electricity from either wind or solar power, plus batteries, and nothing else. After all this time, there must be some modern industrial city, region, or nation, that has gone 100% intermittent renewables, plus batteries.
Norway is a modern country that does get almost 100% power from hydro. But hydro is dispatchable, being able to ramp up and down, as conditions and demand changes. I don’t see a similar country using wind or solar, with capacity factors well below 50%.
_ Pete
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This a false narrative. You are not considering the grid supplying electrical backup for all users on the grid. You are not considering battery back up in a realistic sense. Just because an area has no sun or no wind for a few hours does not mean you need 100% backup for 12 hours. The grid guarantees that users will NOT be out of electricity.
However, we already have actual electrical grid down times after storms, hurricanes, tornados and floods. Having a nuclear plant does not guarantee electrical power 24/7. Nuclear power plants have scheduled shutdown periods and sometimes emergency shutdown periods.
That is why some Tech Companies are investing in natural gas fired power plants which are much cheaper than nuclear power plants and can be built in 2-3 years just like solar/wind farms with battery backup.
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Sure, but that’s not an option for this type of user. I think you might just be firing off reflexive defenses of solar/wind power generally, rather than looking at what’s being discussed.
MSFT is buying an entire nuclear plant’s worth of power - or something pretty close to it. These new AI uses have such massive power requirements that they can’t just go to the grid and say, “I’d like to open a new account, I’ll be consuming several hundred MW per hour please.” That’s why they’re buying/building/contracting with power plants for their own solo use.
That’s why they’re restarting 3MI, rather than building their own personal solar farm. Because the grid is unavailable to them for their back up needs at this scale.
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[quote=“waterfell, post:33, topic:108909”]nucl
I’m still waiting for someone to show me just one, large industrial city that gets 100% of its electricity from either wind or solar power, plus batteries, and nothing else.
[/quote]
That is a completely false story. I can make up the same about nuclear power plants:
“I’m still waiting for someone to show me just one, large industrial city that gets 100% of its electricity from a nuclear power plant, and nothing else.”
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And…pumped storage hydropower!
Contrarian view - it’s a utilization problem, not a capacity problem.
“The average server utilization rate hovers between 12%-18% of capacity, while an estimated 10 million servers sit completely idle.”
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This response shows that you do not understand electrical power and the grid. If MSFT is buying an entire nuclear plants worth of power then they get the power from the grid! The nuclear plant is not located on the MSFT site. They do not have dedicated transmission lines from the nuclear plant to the MSFT site.
What will MSFT do for electrical power when the nuclear plant is shutdown for normal refueling, maintenance or emergency maintenance?
MSFT is always going to be dependent on the grid.
Three Mile Island nuclear power plant is on the PJM grid.
Sure, but they won’t have arrangements with the grid for replacing that amount of power. They’re buying their electricity from the operator of 3MI - it goes through the grid, but the grid provider isn’t entering into a contract with MSFT to guarantee them continuous access to power 24/7 absent normal maintenance.
If you’re talking about this much power, you can’t rely on the grid for back-up to replace intermittent sources as part of the status quo if you choose to buy your electricity from an 820 MW solar farm instead of an 820 MW nuclear facility. Either the provider, you, or the grid will have to build a ton of back-up to provide that power to accommodate the intermittent demand - and the grid provider is probably not going to be inclined to do that for a single industrial user like this.