Forty years after the worst commercial nuclear power plant accident in U.S. history unfolded on Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, the only nuclear power reactor still operating there is preparing to shut down, the New York Times reported. The facility, which is near Middletown, Pa., has been losing money, and in a statement yesterday, Exelon Generation, the company that owns the plant, said that it would be closed by Sept. 30. The company and its employees had been hoping for a subsidy from the state, and when that fell through, a shutdown was the only option, according to the company. An Exelon spokesman said that the cost of decommissioning the site was estimated at around $1.2 billion. The plant on Three Mile Island, which sits in the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township in central Pennsylvania, has been struggling financially for years. Exelon announced as early as 2017 that it would close down the plant “absent needed policy reforms.” Supporters of nuclear energy went after those reforms: Two bills were introduced in the State Legislature that would have steered about $500 million to clean power producers in Pennsylvania, with nuclear plants as the main beneficiaries. That might have kept Three Mile Island open, but no action was taken on the measures.
