"The United States is making an unprecedented attempt to revive three shuttered nuclear plants to meet rising energy demand, including from large-scale data centers.
No commercial nuclear reactor is known to have resumed generating electricity after beginning the decommissioning process that takes one out of service, though some reactors have restarted after long outages.
The Department of Energy is lending as much as $4.4 billion to restart the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan, the Crane Clean Energy Center on Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island and the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa to restore a combined 2.25 gigawatts of electricity, which can power roughly 2 million homes and businesses. All three of the plants closed before their licenses expired, largely because the electricity they produced was considered too expensive.
Not anymore. Two of the plants have contracts with Big Tech companies that will pay a premium to get large amounts of carbon-free energy for data centers. President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing hard to deploy nuclear power for artificial intelligence and manufacturing. It’s also lending billions of dollars for upgrades to produce more electricity from currently operating nuclear plants. "
Jennifer McDermott repurts for the Associated Press October 16, 2026.
