US Energy Department Advances $4.4 Billion to Restart Three Shuttered Nuclear Plants for AI

The US Department of Energy announced it is advancing loans of up to $4.4 billion to restart three nuclear power plants that had been shut down before their operating licences expired — the Crane Clean Energy Center at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the Palisades plant in Michigan, and the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa. Together the three plants would add approximately 2.25 gigawatts of generating capacity, enough to power around two million homes and businesses. The plants previously closed because their electricity was considered too expensive to compete on the open market, but rising energy demand from AI data centres has changed the economics dramatically. Microsoft has contracted to buy power from the Pennsylvania site for 20 years, and Google is backing the Iowa restart, which is planned for 2029. The loans are part of the Trump administration's broader strategy to expand nuclear power for artificial intelligence infrastructure and advanced manufacturing. The announcement marks one of the largest federal energy-infrastructure commitments in the current AI power-demand cycle, and analysts noted it signals a structural shift in how US policymakers view nuclear energy's role in the technology economy.