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Maybe someone can elaborate on this, since I know basically nothing about chemistry or nuclear physics; isn't Three Mile Island still completely irradiated and unsafe for humans to inhabit?
How much would it cost to build a new reactor with comparable power output?
I wonder what the legal basis of the loan is. Congress controls the money; what authorization does the executive branch have for loaning $1 billion?
Isn't M$FT a $Trillion dollar company? They can afford it on their own bootstraps
>That’s cheaper than a brand-new nuclear power plant would cost, but it’s a hefty premium over wind, solar, and geothermal, according to a comparison of energy costs from Lazard.

Nuclear is more expensive because there are extensive regulations. "Green" energy not only does not face so many regulations but it benefits from incentives.

Also, when comparing nuclear with "green" energy, most studies don't take into account the costs of energy storage.

As of 2025, even accounting for the costs of storage, solar and wind are cheaper than nuclear.
So, even more AI shoved down our throats during the coming years?
This is very interesting to me because a plant this old might be cheaper to operate than a new plant, but might be like the space shuttle in that replacement parts aren’t readily available and thus expensive to custom manufacture.

If you were to step into the control room you’d see analog phones, tiny incandescent bulbs behind plastic covers… looks like a sci-fi set from the 60s.

The expensive part of a reactor isn’t really the reactor or tech itself, it’s the government regulation from the DOE and NRC.

I worked at Areva/Framatome/B&W and IIRC they still have the archival room where hundreds of 4 inch D ring binders held the original design docs that had to be submitted for approval.