A half century ago, nuclear power was seen as a promising source of energy for the future. But war and disasters quickly changed public opinion, and the promise of nuclear power became cursed. Now, big tech companies want to bring it back to life. Scott Thuman reports on the renewed interest in nuclear power and the challenges that lie ahead.
The following is a transcript of a report from “Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson.”
Watch the video by clicking the link at the end of the page.
Walter Cronkite, CBS News, March 28, 1979: “It was the first step in a nuclear nightmare…”
In March of 1979, one nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania suffered a meltdown—an uncontrolled nuclear reaction.
PBS Documentary “Meltdown at Three Mile Island”: This is easily the most serious accident in the life of the reactor program”
Panic in the surrounding area was only compounded by a meltdown in crisis management, conflicting reports and confusion by authorities on exposure and evacuation, and all fueled by a disaster film about a nuclear meltdown released just weeks before the Three Mile Island accident.
Nuclear power, which grew out of the oil price shock of the early ’70s and was producing almost 10% of America’s electricity, took a hit. Until now.
Nancy Chen, CBS News, Sept. 21, 2024: “There’s a new plan to power up a reactor at the site of this country’s worst commercial nuclear disaster”
New demand, changes in safety technology, and a search for clean energy alternatives are putting Three Mile Island and nuclear power back on the map. In a bold move, Microsoft signed a 20-year deal to bring Three Mile Island’s infamous facility back online, which has been dormant since 2019 because other energy sources were more cost effective. The tech giant will purchase 100 percent of the energy generated by the plant’s remaining nuclear reactor, marking the first time a nuclear reactor in the US has been restarted after closing.
There is an almost exponential increase in demand for electricity and a new burden on the grid – Artificial Intelligence. Companies like Amazon and Google are looking for fossil-fuel-free ways to power energy-hungry data centers, which are forecast to consume 9% of the nation’s power supply by 2030, that’s double the demand of today.
Edward Kee: Nuclear power is going to be something we have to do to get to clean electricity.
Edward Kee served in the US Navy, led the building of the nuclear reactors powering the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, and sees nuclear energy as a solution to much of the country’s energy issues.
Scott Thuman: With the understanding that there is demand that will increase, whether it be through data centers or AI, is nuclear the answer?
Edward Kee: When you’re adding multiple data centers, you’re straining what’s already a strained system in a lot of parts of the country. And so, you’re going to have to add new capacity for generation. You’re going to have to add new transmission lines and other things to meet that demand.
Scott Thuman: How dire is the situation?
Edward Kee: Well, you probably saw the Texas events when they had the big freeze a few years ago. Blackouts happened. We were close to that this last summer in the heat during the summer peaks. We haven’t built a lot of big power plants for a while, and as demand grows, that gets tighter and tighter.
The most recent nuclear facility to go online is located in Georgia, at the Vogtle plant, where taxpayers picked up a big chunk of the tab.
Utility operator Georgia Power borrowed $12 billion from the Department of Energy, or DOE, to add two additional reactors to its fleet, making Vogtle the largest nuclear power plant in the US. In Pennsylvania, Constellation Energy will borrow an estimated $1.5 billion from the DOE to resurrect Three Mile Island for Microsoft.
Although the US is the largest producer of nuclear power in the world, other countries are faster at bringing plants to life, in particular, China and Russia. They’re now leading in the construction of new nuclear facilities. Some of those plants are outside their borders, allowing American adversaries economic footholds in other countries.
Scott Thuman: What does this mean for national defense?
Edward Kee: If you want to build a nuclear power plant today, the Chinese are the ones with the most experience and the most certainty about timing and costs. The Russians are building in their country and in a lot of other countries by using a government-to-government lending approach. The Russians are very explicit about saying, “We’ll loan you money to build this nuclear plant. By the way, we’ll also do an arms deal, we’ll do an oil deal, we’ll do this other deal.”
But with Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, the ‘dealmaker-in-chief’ may shift the international balance of power in the global energy market and reassert US influence.
For Full Measure, I’m Scott Thuman in Washington, DC.
Watch video here.
