The Trump administration on Tuesday announced a $1 billion federal loan to Constellation Energy to revive a portion of the long-idle Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, now operating under the name Crane Clean Energy Center, according to CNBC. The unit—formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1—last produced electricity in 2019. It is slated to restart in 2027 under an agreement to power Microsoft data centers. The site remains widely known for the 1979 partial meltdown at Unit 2, the most serious nuclear accident in U.S. history. Federal financing will cover the majority of the estimated $1.6 billion cost, with initial funding expected in early 2026.
Constellation, the country’s largest nuclear operator, has committed to safeguards designed to protect taxpayer dollars. While the company could have completed the project without federal support, the loan is expected to help lower electricity costs for roughly 65 million customers across the 13-state PJM Interconnection grid, said Greg Beard, a senior advisor in the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office. “What’s important for the administration is to show support for affordable, reliable, secure energy in the U.S.,” Beard told reporters. “This loan to Constellation will lower the cost of capital and make power cheaper for those PJM ratepayers.”
The Energy Department is also backing the return of two other nuclear plants: the Palisades facility in Michigan with a $1.5 billion loan, and Iowa’s Duane Arnold plant, which is associated with a power agreement involving Google. The Three Mile Island restart is part of a broader push to bring dormant reactors back online amid rising demand for steady electricity supplies, fueled in part by artificial-intelligence growth and expanding data-center needs. Nuclear energy is “virtually carbon-free,” as CNN notes. However, the Washington Post points out significant debate over using taxpayer money to support these projects, which carry “the financial risk that comes with generating energy for wealthy tech companies.”