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"This is another chapter in a nightmare that won't end," a campaigner said.
The corporation that owns the shuttered nuclear plant on Three Mile Island on Friday announced a deal with Microsoft to reopen the facility to provide power to the tech company for data centers using artificial intelligence.
Three Mile Island is well-known as the site of largest nuclear disaster in U.S. history—a reactor there, Unit 2, partially melted down in 1979. However, the site's other reactor, Unit 1, continued to operate safely until 2019, when it was closed for economic reasons.
With the help of tax breaks from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), plant owner Constellation Energy plans to spend $1.6 billion to restart Unit 1, with all of the power going to Microsoft for the first 20 years. Microsoft and other tech firms use inordinate amounts of energy to power data centers used for AI and have advocated for nuclear as a zero-emissions power source.
Though it doesn't emit carbon, nuclear power's downsides make it the subject of fierce opposition from many environmental and public safety groups.
Friday's deal, combining nuclear power and AI, which also poses great safety risks, was too much for The Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch, who quipped that "the hellscape of modern life" had been captured in one headline.
Local campaigners vowed to push against the reopening and keep the area free of nuclear activity.
"We will challenge this proposal at every venue that is available for us," Eric Epstein, a former chairman of Three Mile Island Alert, a campaign group, told the Inquirer.
"This is another chapter in a nightmare that won't end," he added.
Siri, define the hellscape of modern life in one headline https://t.co/miQMSWROmp
— Will Bunch (@Will_Bunch) September 20, 2024
Three Mile Island would be the first decommissioned U.S. nuclear plant to reopen, and the first to provide all of its power to one corporation, according to The New York Times. Microsoft and Constellation didn't disclose the financial details of the deal.
About 19% of electricity in the U.S. comes from nuclear power, and a drive for "clean energy," as well as the IRA credits, have spurred growth in the sector. Microsoft co-founder and former CEO Bill Gates is a vocal proponent and has started his own nuclear company, TerraPower, which is building a plant in Wyoming.
The Three Mile Island project, expected to get the plant back online in 2028, still needs regulatory approval at multiple levels. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, has already come out in support of the plan.
A study commissioned by the Pennsylvania Building & Construction Trades Council, which represents more than 115 local unions, found that reopening the plant would create 3,400 direct and indirect jobs, including 600 at the plant itself, which is in the middle of the Susquehanna River, just south of Harrisburg, the state capital. The plant's reopening is seen by some community leaders as the revival of an "economic anchor in a region beset with financial hardship," according to The Washington Post.
Pennsylvania has five active nuclear plants, including two owned by Constellation, whose stock price shot up on Friday morning after the Three Mile Island announcement was made. The company and other industry backers celebrated the symbolic victory of restarting the plant.
"If anything says nuclear power is here to stay and expand, it's Three Mile Island reopening!" Amir Adnani, CEO of Uranium Energy Corp, wrote on social media.
Epstein, the campaigner, said the focus should be finishing the cleanup from the 1979 disaster. About 99% of the Unit 2's fuel has been removed to Idaho, but the last 1% has proven difficult to deal with.
"First things first, remove the waste from the island, and clean up [Unit 2]," Epstein said.
"There is no military need to do this," said one rights advocate.
In the latest potential violation of international law by Israeli soldiers in the occupied Palestinian territories, footage verified by media outlets on Friday showed members of the Israel Defense Forces pushing and kicking what appeared to be the lifeless bodies of three Palestinians off a rooftop in Qabatiya, a West Bank town.
The Associated Press obtained video showing three soldiers on the roof of a building that the IDF had attacked with grenades earlier, picking up a body and dragging it toward the edge of the rooftop before pushing it off. On another nearby rooftop, the soldiers in the footage are seen swinging a body by its limbs over the edge of the building onto the ground below, where a bulldozer operated by the IDF was moving.
A third body is seen being kicked by a soldier toward the edge of a building. Ultimately, the soldier kicks the human body all the way off.
An AP journalist and other reporters in Qabatiya also told the outlet they had witnessed the incidents, while Al Jazeera reported it had verified the footage.
Al Jazeera correspondent Hamdah Salhut posted the disturbing footage on the social media platform X.
Ameed Shehadeh, a correspondent for Al-Arabi who also witnessed the incident, told CNN that "a bulldozer tried to demolish the house to bring the bodies down."
"That didn't work," said Shehadeh. "Soldiers went up and kicked and pushed the bodies off the roof, as we have seen."
Mustafa Barghouti, secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, said the video didn't make clear whether the Israeli soldiers had verified whether the people "were still alive or not" before they kicked and pushed them off the rooftops.
Under the statute of the International Criminal Court, the war crime defined as "committing outrages upon personal dignity" prohibits soldiers from mutilating dead bodies in armed conflicts.
The IDF has been accused of "necroviolence" against the bodies of Palestinians they've killed in the past, including in 2020 when a journalist shot a video showing an IDF soldier running over a lifeless body with a bulldozer.
"The footage we've seen is horrific and it's making the rounds here in Palestine. But ultimately, Palestinians are not surprised. Israel has a track record of disrespecting the bodies of the Palestinians they kill," said Leila Warah, an independent journalist in Palestine.
The Israeli military released a statement saying the footage showed "a serious incident that does not coincide with IDF values and the expectations from IDF soldiers."
Other attacks and incidents in Gaza and the West Bank over the past year that the IDF has claimed were accidents or were not in accordance with its rules and values include, but are not limited to, the killing of U.S. activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in the West Bank this month, the bombing of a so-called "safe zone" in Rafah, and air strikes that killed seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen in Gaza.
Following a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel last October, Israeli officials also said they were releasing all "restraints" on the IDF in Gaza and referred to the enclave's 2.3 million people as "human animals."
The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that the IDF has killed at least 700 Palestinians in the West Bank since last October.
Shawan Jabarin, director of Palestinian rights group Al-Haq, said of the video released Friday, "there is no military need to do this. It's just a savage way of treating Palestinian bodies."
He added that the IDF will likely not hold anyone accountable for the abuse of the dead bodies.
"The most that will happen is that soldiers will be disciplined," said Jabarin, "but there will be no real investigation and no real prosecution."
"During the 20 years since our first study, the amount of plastic in our oceans has increased by around 50%, only further emphasizing the pressing need for action," said one leading researcher.
Some of the key scientists who first informed the world of the potential damage being done to natural systems by microplastics are now calling for world leaders to take decisive action to curb the introduction of these polluting materials into the environment—and they hope the looming United Nations treaty process on plastics can be a key vehicle for progress.
Alongside a new scientific review published cataloging the growing body of research on microplastics—defined as plastic particles smaller than 5 millimeters and "composed of polymers together with functional additives as well as other intentionally and unintentionally added chemicals"—the international group of scientists says concerted actions must be taken, including bans on certain materials and a focus on plastic pollution mitigation that puts less emphasis on consumer habits and recycling efforts by keeping microplastics out of the supply chain "in the first place."
According to the abstract of the review, published Thursday in the journal Science:
Twenty years after the first publication using the term microplastics, we review current understanding, refine definitions and consider future prospects. Microplastics arise from multiple sources including tires, textiles, cosmetics, paint and the fragmentation of larger items. They are widely distributed throughout the natural environment with evidence of harm at multiple levels of biological organization. They are pervasive in food and drink and have been detected throughout the human body, with emerging evidence of negative effects. Environmental contamination could double by 2040 and widescale harm has been predicted. Public concern is increasing and diverse measures to address microplastics pollution are being considered in international negotiations. Clear evidence on the efficacy of potential solutions is now needed to address the issue and to minimize the risks of unintended consequences.
Professor Richard Thompson of Plymouth University, who co-authored that first scientific study and coined the term microplastics just two decades years ago, says researchers now have more than enough evidence to show world leaders that serious action must be taken to curb the use of plastics, with special attention to the minuscule and microscopic forms of the material that are increasingly being found polluting ecosystems—both on land as well as in the sea—and embedded within living organisms, including humans.
"There are still unknowns, but during the 20 years since our first study, the amount of plastic in our oceans has increased by around 50%, only further emphasizing the pressing need for action," Thompson said in a statement put out by Plymouth.
In the statement, the university noted:
Since the publication of the first study in 2004, an estimated 7,000 research studies have been conducted on microplastics, providing considerable evidence in their sources and impacts as well as potential solutions.
Microplastics have been found on every corner of the planet, in more than 1,300 aquatic and terrestrial species, in the food and drink we consume, and in multiple tissues and organs of the human body.
With emissions of microplastics to the environment estimated to be up to 40 megatons per year, a number that could double by 2040, predictions indicate the potential for widescale environmental harm moving into the next century.
The research details how microplastics demand an international response due to their transitory nature. While they enter the environment in various ways—whether from direct release as fibers into the air from textiles or dust, discharged through water systems via runoff or sewage drains, or via breakdown or fragmentation—once discarded, the study says, "microplastics can travel far from their point of entry and are not constrained by national boundaries highlighting the importance of actions at a global level."
Professor Sabine Pahl, who teaches Urban and Environmental Psychology at the University of Vienna and is an honorary professor at the University of Plymouth, said, "Plastic pollution is completely caused by human actions. That's why we need research on perceptions of risks and benefits of plastic as well as other drivers of policy support and change, integrating a social science perspective."
With the next round of talks in the UN's Plastic Pollution Treaty set for November, the researchers said the negotiations offer a "tangible opportunity" for nations to act on this issue. "In our view," they wrote, "science will be just as important guiding the way toward solutions as it has been in identifying the problems."