Three Mile Island wants to resume operations. What about Iowa center Duane Arnold?

PALO, IA — NextEra Energy Resources, owner of the Duane Arnold Energy Center in eastern Iowa, said it may consider reopening the nuclear plant after announcing Three Mile Island’s willingness to resume operations.

The Des Moines Register reports that Three Mile Island’s owner, Maryland-based Constellation Energy, said Sept. 20 that it wants to restart a reactor at the plant where the worst commercial nuclear accident in the United States occurred 45 years ago.

According to the Register, the company plans to restart a functioning reactor at Three Mile Island to provide 835 megawatts to meet the massive power needs of Microsoft Corp.’s data centers. over the next two decades. Repowering Three Mile Island, where one of the two reactors suffered a partial meltdown in 1979, will cost $1.6 billion, the utility estimates.

NextEra, the Florida company that owns the 600-megawatt Duane Arnold Nuclear Center in Palo, told News Now of Iowa in a statement:

“NextEra Energy Resources regularly explores opportunities to best utilize our assets to meet future energy demands. The company may consider resuming operations at the Duane Arnold Energy Center, but there are no formal plans to do so at this time. We are in the early stages of evaluating this opportunity. The company, which is the majority owner of the plant, began decommissioning the facility in August 2020.

Resumption of operations at a nuclear power plant that has begun the decommissioning process is not a simple exercise. The company needs time to review all necessary aspects in order to make an informed decision regarding resuming operations at the facility. »

The Duane Arnold Energy Center, Iowa’s only nuclear power plant, closed four years ago because it was no longer economically viable.