Public hearing on TMI's damaged Unit 2 set as talk swirls that Unit 1 could be restarted

The Salt Lake City-based company handling the decommission of the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island will hold one of its periodic public meetings to update progress in mothballing the reactor damaged in the United States' worst nuclear accident in March 1979.

The meeting of TMI2Solutions Community Advisory Panel is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sept. 12 in the Madlyn Hanes Library on the campus of Penn State-Harrisburg in Middletown. At the meeting, the company will provide an update of its progress, leaving time for questions at the end of the presentation.

It's a fairly routine meeting, but it comes as talk swirls that Baltimore-based Constellation Energy – a company spun off from former TMI owner Exelon – is working on plans to recommission the plant’s Unit 1 reactor, which was permanently shut down five years ago. The plant was shut down on Sept. 20, 2019, after being in operation for 45 years.

The discussion first surfaced in May when, according to PennLive, Constellation CEO Joseph Dominguez was asked during a public meeting whether there is a chance that Unit 1 could be recommissioned.

More about TMI: He risked his life to prevent a meltdown. Now, a hero of the TMI accident gets recognized

More about the TMI accident: 'It scared the hell out of people': Remembering Three Mile Island accident, 40 years later

Dominguez’s response did not rule it out. He said the company is “doing a good bit of thinking about a number of different opportunities” to expand its nuclear power generation capability and that Three Mile Island “would probably be certainly one of those that we would think about.”

Then, in July, Reuters reported that Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office and state lawmakers were in “beyond preliminary” talks with Constellation about reopening Unit 1.

The report, citing unnamed sources, indicated that the company was possibly seeking a public-private partnership at the plant.

The Shapiro administration declined to comment on the reports, other than to say that “the governor is committed to updating the state’s energy portfolio standards,” Reuters reported.

Constellation spokesman Dave Snyder told Reuters that the company has determined it would be “feasible to restart the unit,” but that the company has “not made any decision on a restart as there are many economic, commercial, operational and regulatory considerations remaining.”

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Hearing on TMI's Unit 2 set amid talk Unit 1 could be restarted