It’s being reported that Three Mile Island nuclear plants will be restarted soon. The project will be renamed the Crane Clean Energy Center.
The driving force behind its restart is the massive amounts of electricity required to run the new AI supercomputers. In the case of Three Mile Island, Microsoft is the high tech entity throwing its financial weight around behind the scenes.
AI supercomputers should be seen as a huge opportunity by our state’s political leaders to bring new, clean, high paying industry into our state and regions. But we need to start planning how to bring new power sources online.
Forty years ago, the Northwest Power Planning Council was singing the siren song of “conservation will solve the problem.” Well, conservation isn’t going to solve the problem, and high tech companies aren’t buying the “renewable” nonsense anymore, either.
They want large and reliable coal, nuclear or natural gas power stations.
Let’s figure out some way to get them built or, in some cases, restarted.
According to one source, coal burner No. 2 at the TransAlta Centralia Coal Plant is still feeding the grid. Burner No. 1 was shut down in 2020.
I think it’s time to give our Centralia coal plant new life. The carbon dioxide it releases is making planet earth greener, and operators should be awarded tax credits for this important contribution to our environment.
Robert Crocker
Chehalis
