Microsoft to Bring Back Three Mile Island—and NUCLEAR Power
This is an editorial in the WSJ by Mark Mills. It concerns the reopening of one reactor at Three Mile Island.
The news that Microsoft plans to fund the reopening of the undamaged reactor at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant spread almost as quickly as news about the nuclear accident at that same site in 1979. Microsoft’s decision was animated, as the Journal reported, by the “gargantuan amount of power needed for data centers for AI.” During the nuclear industry’s long winter following the 1979 accident, it would never have occurred to anyone that algorithms and not Congress would revive nuclear energy.
Several key points are made in this one opening statement:
- Private industry (Microsoft), not the goverhment, will revive nuclear energy in PA. Get the government regulators out of the way.
- AI is a giant energy hog. We can’t expect to be leaders in AI without significantly upgrading our energy grid. Reviving Three Mile Island is a start. (Continuing using Diablo Canyon is another example). How can we compete with China in AI if China opens two new coal-powered electricty plants each week? Answer: we can’t. The greenies are going to have to make a decision. Do they want to end global warming (if they do, they’d better put pressure on China not to open so many coal-fired plants. Good luck with that), or do they want faster, easier shopping on Amazon and better customer service across all industries with AI?
- The nuclear winter may be over. Three Mile Island soured Americans’ taste for nuclear power, but not the rest of the world. France produces 90% of its energy from nuclear. No news organization seems to cover the story that France didn’t suffer when Russia shut off natural gas from the Nordstream II pipeline like its neighbor Germany.
