Two reactor restarts cleared regulatory steps, and the licence is not the hard part
Victoria Shinder2 min readTwo reactors that had been shut down for good moved a step closer to running again, on opposite sides of the Pacific, according to two reports published by World Nuclear News on 28 September.
Crane, Pennsylvania. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, with the Department of Energy's Office of Energy Dominance Financing as a cooperating agency, issued an environmental assessment and a finding of no significant impact for reauthorising power operations at the Christopher Crane Clean Energy Center, the former Three Mile Island unit 1. The 835 MWe reactor was closed for decommissioning in 2019 while holding an operating licence valid to 2034. Constellation has asked the NRC for an exemption and three licence amendments to resume operation until 19 April 2034, says it is ahead of schedule for a return in 2027, and has said it will seek to run beyond 2034, to 2054. A USD 1 billion federal loan backs the project.
Maanshan, Taiwan. Taiwan's Nuclear Safety Commission has completed its review of Taipower's restart plan for the two-unit Maanshan plant, whose reactors went offline in July 2024 and May 2025 when their 40-year licences expired under the island's phase-out policy. A May 2025 amendment allowed operators to apply for 20-year renewals, and Taipower applied in March. The commission says Taipower must still complete follow-up work, including safety inspections, ageing management, radiation and seismic assessments, and submit a further implementation report. The economy minister has said the plant could restart as soon as 2028.
What connects them
Both restarts began with a change of rules rather than a change of machines: a loan and a regulatory pathway in the US, a legislative amendment in Taiwan. With permission largely in place, the constraint moves to the plant itself. A reactor that was prepared for shutdown has to show that its components, its staff and its safety analyses are fit for another decade or more, and that work is measured in inspections and reports, not votes. The dates to watch are Crane's 2027 target and Taipower's next implementation report, because those are the points where engineering, not policy, sets the schedule.