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Three Mile Island owner defends safety record and planning of restart

  • By Tom Lisi/ LNP | LancasterOnline
Craig Smith, regulatory assurance manager for the Crane Clean Energy Center (formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1), explains how the plant is monitored from inside the control room on Oct. 16, 2024.

 Rachel McDevitt / StateImpact Pennsylvania

Craig Smith, regulatory assurance manager for the Crane Clean Energy Center (formerly Three Mile Island Unit 1), explains how the plant is monitored from inside the control room on Oct. 16, 2024.

The company that owns the Three Mile Island nuclear plant defended the planning and safety record of the facility Thursday, after a local activist urged Lancaster County commissioners Wednesday to fight a plan to restart one of the plant’s reactors.

Baltimore-based Constellation Energy, owner of the TMI plant, announced in September it had reached an agreement with Microsoft for the tech giant to be its sole energy customer from the facility’s main nuclear reactor, Unit 1, which shut down in 2019.

“Before it was shut down for economic reasons, the former TMI Unit 1 was among the safest and most reliable power generators in the United States,” said Dave Marcheskie, a spokesman for Baltimore-based Constellation Energy, in an email Thursday.

Microsoft wants to use the carbon-neutral energy from Three Mile Island to power data centers connected to the region’s power grid, according to Constellation.

Constellation has said it hopes to restart Unit 1 in 2028.

The reactor, which Constellation plans to rename the Crane Clean Energy Center Unit 1, restarted operation after Unit 2 experienced a partial meltdown in 1979, and continued generating energy until Constellation shut it down six years ago.

A separate entity, Salt Lake City-based EnergySolutions, owns Unit 2, which is still under an ongoing decommissioning process, according to a federal agreement.

Marcheskie’s comments came in response to remarks from activist and provocateur Gene Stilp on Wednesday. Stilp, a longtime opponent of nuclear energy and the TMI plant, said at a county commissioners meeting that the restart was a safety concern for residents in the region.

Stilp told commissioners they could play a role in trying to stop the reopening of Unit 1 by refusing to cooperate with Constellation over emergency planning that he claimed was required for the plant to restart.

According to Marcheskie, Constellation officials had a meeting with state and county emergency managers about the restart, and they were supportive of it.

“We continue to have great relationships with our local, county, state, and federal agency partners and will listen to feedback from (emergency managers),” Marcheskie said.

Constellation will submit a proposed emergency plan to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for review in the coming weeks, Marcheskie said.

“As the nation’s largest operator of nuclear energy, Constellation is committed to getting this right,” he said.

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