In the United States, big technology companies intend to revive the use of nuclear energy in view of the high electricity bill caused by Artificial Intelligence. While amazon has announced the purchase of a nuclear data center in Pennsylvania and the possibility of installing a small modular reactor (SMR) near the North Anna nuclear power plant (Virginia), Google is behind the construction of seven small reactors nuclear.
Also Microsoft is making moves along those same lines. The company has reached an agreement to resume operations at the Three Mile Island power plant near Harrisburg. It is still striking because here the worst accident in the history of the US civil nuclear industry, when a partial meltdown of the reactor core took place. It was on March 28, 1979 and was due to a series of technical failures and human errors.
A reactor that had only been operational for three months
Three Mile Island Unit 2 (TMI-2) was a pressurized water nuclear power plant designed by Westinghouse. It was of the same type as the Spanish ones of Almaraz-1 and Almaraz-2, in Cáceres, and Ascó-1 and Ascó-2, in Tarragona. The reactor had only been operational for three months.
However, around 4:00 in the morning on March 28, it suffered a severe meltdown of its core. The plant experienced a series of failures and errors that caused it to begin to lose cooling water from the primary circuit and, consequently, to produce a dangerous increased temperature of uranium fuel.
Although the reactor automatically shut down, intense residual heat remained in the core and the fuel rods began to melt (known as core meltdown). From that moment on, radioactive gases were released into the atmosphere. Informed of the seriousness of the events, the Governor of Pennsylvania, Dick Thornburg, ordered the evacuation of children preschoolers and pregnant women within a five-mile radius.
On the brink of catastrophe
Things got worse. The extreme heat inside the reactor caused hydrogen gas to form in the metal linings. A hydrogen bubble formed inside the reactor made it even more difficult to pump cooling water to the core. It was feared that a hydrogen explosion would occur.
The authorities were forced to take new measures. Due to concerns about hydrogen buildup and possible core meltdown, residents were alerted in a 20 mile radius around the plant that were prepared to be evacuated. Because, indeed, in Harrisburg (in Spain the news was always told with reference to the place and not the name of the plant) it was on the verge of a great nuclear catastrophe.
‘The China Syndrome’
Coincidences of life, the Three Mile Island accident happened just days after the film ‘The China Syndrome’ had been released in the United States. Performed by Jack Lemon, Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas, it narrates the discovery by a television reporter and her photographer of a possible accident at a nuclear power plant that could endanger the city of Los Angeles. It was named after the China syndrome, an extreme hypothesis involving the meltdown of a nuclear reactor, in which the resulting molten material passes through the concrete or cement barrier beneath it and flows out of the building that contains it.
Was the core 30 minutes away from melting?
The authorities did not understand the seriousness of the events: the reactor core had suffered a partial meltdown. Only four years later, when technicians were able to see inside the reactor for the first time, did they realize that part of the core had melted and then solidified again like a puddle of candle wax. According to some of the technicians, The core was only 30 minutes away from completely melting, when the cooling water was finally restored.
The accident, rated level 5 on the International Nuclear Event Scale (INES), was the second most serious in the history of the nuclear industry until the accident Fukushimain Japan. The first, of level 7 or maximum, was that of Chernobyl. A level 5 event on the INES scale is defined as an “accident with widespread consequences.”
The Three Mile Island accident caused a significant release of radioactivity and caused an increase in cancer in the areas close to the plant, at least according to independent studies cited Greenpeace.
Confusion and incorrect decisions
The confusion experienced in communications between operators, regulators and the local and regional government contributed to all of this. According to the official transcripts of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC, the United States nuclear safety agency), its president at the time, Joseph Hendrie, concluded by saying that “this looks like a pair of staggering blind men around decision making.
“This looks like a couple of blind men stumbling around making decisions.”
The result was that it became more difficult to make decisions quickly and effectively. There is general consensus that the Harrisbourg accident was aggravated by the incorrect decisions made by operators overwhelmed with information, much of it inapplicable and useless.
What does Microsoft want from Three Mile Island?
Cleaning the reactor after the accident took 14 years. It began in August 1979 and was not officially completed until December 1993, with a total cost of about $975 million. Between 1985 and 1990, they were removed from this Pennsylvania location almost 100 tons of radioactive fuel. That reactor has been closed since 1979, while the other, TMI-1, was restarted in 1985. In 2019 this one was also closed permanently… or so it seemed.
Now, 45 years later, Three Mile Island is reopening its doors. It will create energy again, but this time all of it will be sold to Microsoftwhich will thus purchase carbon-free energy to power its data centers in support of the artificial intelligence.
The energy company Constellation Energy, owner of the plant, announced the agreement last September. Wait that its TMI-1 reactor will return to operation in 2028although it depends on the approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Nuclear energy provided in the US about 20% of the total annual electricity consumed.
According to Bobby Hollis, vice president of energy at Microsoft, “this agreement is an important milestone in Microsoft’s efforts to contribute to the decarbonization of the network in support of our commitment to reducing carbon emissions.
Biden: billions for clean energy
Resurrecting the Harrisburg plant is possible thanks to the current Biden Administration’s climate bill, inform cnn. It contains billions in tax credits to encourage clean nuclear energyin addition to wind, solar and clean hydrogen. Billions have also been allocated to finance the closure of old plants.
Constellation says reopening Three Mile Island Unit 1 reactor will create 3,400 direct and indirect jobs and will contribute more than 800 megawatts of electricity to the grid. It is also expected to contribute $16 billion to Pennsylvania’s GDP.
In the USA there are 93 nuclear reactors spread across 54 nuclear power plants in 28 states, according to NRC data. However, the country still does not have a permanent repository for nuclear waste. At the moment, they are stored in more than 70 operating and closed plants throughout the country.
