A federal regulator appointed by President Biden is cheering on plans to use nuclear energy to power data centers fueling the tech sector, praising the Three Mile Island plant’s anticipated reopening of a long-shuttered reactor in a deal with tech giant Microsoft.
Constellation Energy Corporation said last month it was working with Microsoft to restart a reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. The restored reactor is physically adjacent to another reactor that partially melted down in 1979, a major accident that sparked fear and set back the nuclear power industry in the country for decades.
David Rosner, appointed by Mr. Biden to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission earlier this year, told a Washington audience Wednesday he was thrilled to hear about the nuclear power plant restarting in support of Big Tech’s energy needs.
Asked about the nuclear plant’s new life at an artificial intelligence summit organized by the tech company NVIDIA, Mr. Rosner said he would not prejudge any matter that could come before the commission, but he added he thought it was “cool.”
“I was just excited that hey, this unique thing, this power plant that had been shut down might actually come back on,” Mr. Rosner said. “And, again, at a high level, that’s exactly what we need. What we need is more supply on the system and these two parties, through a negotiation that they did together, found a way to do that.”
The energy industry is expecting a surge in consumption because of growing artificial intelligence usage. Tech companies like Microsoft are scrambling to find new sources to meet the gigantic power needs of the data centers they are building at a feverish pace.
Federal lawmakers expressed concerns earlier this year that AI makers’ electricity demands could affect taxpayers’ utility bills. The electricity demands are going up at data centers that have computer servers processing, storing, and sharing information, according to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro touted the reopening of the Three Mile Island reactor as a way to create “thousands of energy jobs,” in a statement shared last month by Constellation Energy. Mr. Shapiro said the reopened plant would help his administration achieve its goals of cutting energy costs and ensuring energy grid reliability.
Mr. Rosner indicated that the Three Mile Island reopening is unlikely to be the only nuclear power solution to the tech sector’s electricity demands in America.
Asked on Wednesday if more deals like the one at Three Mile Island will come, Mr. Rosner told the NVIDIA gathering, “I think so.”
Mr. Rosner is one of five presidentially appointed commissioners at FERC, an agency focused on regulating the transmission of energy, particularly natural gas, oil and electricity. He was installed as a FERC commissioner earlier this year, after working as a staff member for the commission and as an aide to Sen. Joe Manchin, West Virginia Democrat-turned-independent.
Analysts said the Three Mile Island reception shows that nuclear power is now considered green, clean, and no longer obscene in influential Democratic political circles.
Earlier this month, political blogger Matthew Yglesias encouraged Democrats seeking men’s votes in the November election to tout the Biden administration’s agenda in support of nuclear power, noting male voters in particular express strong support for nuclear power generation.
“The gender gap on nuclear power is enormous, larger than the gender gap on abortion rights or working moms or anything else I can find,” Mr. Yglesias said on X, citing Gallup polling data. “Pro-nuclear is the single most male-coded issue around.”
Mr. Ygelsias said Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had a “pretty good record on nuclear power” and Democrats courting votes should talk about it more.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican challenger to the incumbent Democratic administration, has made accelerating energy production a hallmark of his campaign message in 2024.
• Ryan Lovelace can be reached at rlovelace@washingtontimes.com.
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