The site of the worst nuclear accident in US history could come back into service by 2028 to power Microsoft’s data center energy needs, including artificial intelligence.
According to a purchasing agreement between Microsoft and Constellation Energy, a nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania that went offline five years ago would be reactivated. The reactor, dubbed Unit 1, is close to Unit 2, which famously experienced a partial meltdown in 1979 in an incident that cooled enthusiasm for nuclear power in the US for decades.
Pending Nuclear Regulatory Commission approval, the plant would resume operations starting in 2028 and, under a 20-year agreement, would provide energy solely to Microsoft. Constellation said in a press release that it hopes to extend operations there until at least 2054 and that the reactor would generate an additional 800 megawatts of electricity and add 3,400 jobs to the economy.
The electricity demand from artificial intelligence is becoming so “crazy” that Oracle is looking to secure power from next-generation nuclear technology, Ellison told investors on the company’s earnings call Monday.
“Let me say something that’s going to sound really bizarre,” Ellison told analysts. “Well, you’d probably say, well, he says bizarre things all the time, so why is he announcing this one. It must be really bizarre.”
Oracle is designing a data center that will require more than a gigawatt of electricity, the company’s chairman said. The data center would be powered by three small nuclear reactors, he added. “The location and the power place we’ve located, they’ve already got building permits for three nuclear reactors,” Ellison said. “These are the small modular nuclear reactors to power the data center. This is how crazy it’s getting. This is what’s going on.”
Ellison did not disclose the location of the data center or the future reactors.
All this, mind, while even the business rationale for all this is based on bollocks and make-believe.
There’s a distinct type of I believe essentially American megagrift where, to sustain an original fabrication, the lies become bolder and bolder and the audience more gullible and gullible until the bizarreness of it all has reached such titanic proportions that even Tall Tale Land has shrunk to the tiniest speck in the rear mirror—amply exemplified lately by the Orange Fascist, the Nazi Bar Owner, and Snake Oil Sam, who are always eagerly amplified in unchallenged headlines by the breathless stenography of an ad-engagement chasing “CEO Said a Thing” press.
All that, mind again, while there is an exodus of executives at OpenAI and the company is crumbling.