The US wants to launch a nuclear power plant that was the site of the largest nuclear accident in the country's history

A group of activists wants to legally block the restart of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in the US state of Pennsylvania.

This is reported by the Financial Times.

Three Mile Island Alert, an organization formed nearly 50 years ago to shut down the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant — the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history — plans to challenge the permits needed to restart the plant. The plant's operator, Constellation Energy, plans to restart the plant by 2028 under a 20-year power contract with Microsoft. The $1.6 billion project could be a symbol of a nuclear power renaissance in the United States.

However, the implementation of the plan faces numerous obstacles. In addition to legal challenges, the operator must obtain regulatory approvals, train hundreds of employees, modernize equipment and win the support of the local community, as well as the Donald Trump administration, which will make decisions at the federal level.

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The chairman of TMI Alert, Eric Epstein, called the restart plans “fantasy”, noting that the cleanup of the second power unit of the plant, where a partial meltdown of the core occurred in 1979, is still not complete, and the site remains radioactive. The second reactor was closed after the accident, and the first — of 2019 due to economic unprofitability against the background of growing supplies of cheap natural gas.

However, the demand for electricity continues to grow, especially in connection with the development of data centers, the recovery of industrial production and the electrification of transport. These factors are driving investment in nuclear power, which the Biden administration and major technology companies support as a reliable and carbon-free energy source.

In September 2023, Holtec International received a federal loan in the amount of 1.5 billion dollars to restore a nuclear plant in Michigan, closed a year earlier. In addition, such giants as Google and Amazon have signed agreements to develop new modular reactors.

The accident at Three Mile Island was a partial nuclear meltdown of reactor two nuclear power plant unit. The reactor accident began at 4:00 a.m. on March 28, 1979 and led to the release of radioactive gases and radioactive iodine into the environment.

This is the worst accident in history commercial nuclear power plants of the USA. According to the seven-point logarithmic International Scale of Nuclear Events, the accident at the TMI-2 reactor is level 5. an accident with wider consequences.