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So why is Microsoft spending billions to restart three mile island rather than just installing some solar panels?





Isn't Microsoft also buying an awful lot of solar and wind and storage?

From a single web search just now:

- 400MW of solar in Illinois and Texas, Feb 10 2025 Reuters https://archive.is/5x9VA - 20MW of Wisconsin solar, October 2024 https://nationalgridrenewables.com/press-release/national-gr... - 400MW of Texas solar, Apr 8 2024 https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/04/08/microsoft-signs-two-l...

and that's just the first three hits, there are so many more. TMI won't come online for years, it's planned for 2028, but we will have to see. It was shut down in 2019 because it couldn't compete with gas prices. Microsoft is buying at inflated prices to subsidize clean energy, but solar is also clean energy and when backed by batteries it is price competitive with gas.

The news was because "whoa Microsoft is paying for nuclear" not because "whoa nuclear makes a lot of sense."

There's only so many uneconomic nuclear reactors to start back up.



Because with IRA massively lowering the costs restarting a plant might actually be feasible.

The problem is that new built nuclear power costs tens of billions.




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