The site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history is poised to get a rebranding
- Updated: Oct. 18, 2024, 5:11 a.m.
- |Published: Oct. 18, 2024, 5:10 a.m.
Constellation Energy has reached an agreement with Microsoft to launch the Crane Clean Energy Center and restart Three Mile Island Unit 1 back to service and online producing electricity in 2028. October 16, 2024. Dan Gleiter | dgleiter@pennlive.comDan Gle
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Some of the most recognizable U.S. companies have changed their names over the years for a variety of reasons:
Facebook changed to Meta to reflect its focus on creating a metaverse.
Campbell Soup Company switched to The Campbell’s Company to reflect its wider selection of products.
Dunkin’ Donuts went simply to Dunkin’ to modernize its brand.
Now Constellation Energy wants to change the name of Three Mile Island Nuclear Station.
After all, who wouldn’t want to bury the name attached to the worst nuclear disaster on American soil?
But Constellation’s chief generation officer Bryan Hanson denied that’s the reason the company wants to adopt a new name: Crane Clean Energy Center.
The company, which owns the shuttered nuclear plant, plans to bring the proposal before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for approval on Oct. 25, along with an overview of the plans to restart the nuclear reactor.
Three Mile Island Unit 1 to go online in 2028
“Crane” is a tribute to Chris Crane, the CEO of Constellation’s former parent company who died in April after distinguishing himself as a leader in nuclear energy.
“We’re recognizing a titan of the nuclear industry that established high standards for not only the U.S. but the world to operate these nuclear plants,” Hanson said.
“We’re dedicating this plant in his name because fundamentally we expect to do the same with this plant – restore it to as good as it was when we shut it down, to establish the high levels of reliability and standards that it operated to, and operate [it] for the next 20 plus years. That’s important to us.”
As for including “clean energy” in the proposed name, he said this plant will produce massive amounts of electricity without carbon emissions and at a level of reliability independent of the weather, the sun or pipelines.
“There’s no other industry that makes electricity that can account for every gram of waste and account for it both responsibly and financially like we do,” Hanson said. “We’re very confident in our ability to say clean energy.”
Nuclear energy watchdog Eric Epstein has a hard time accepting that rationale.
“What is ‘clean’ about radioactive waste? You can call TMI whatever you want, but the fact remains that it is a radioactive garbage dump,” he said. “The priority should be cleaning up Three Mile Island, rather than rebranding a nuclear waste site.”
Marketing expert Bo Bothe, president and CEO of BrandExtract of Houston, Texas, said he can’t blame Constellation for seeking a new name for the plant.
“This site has been branded as a failure for America and a danger for so long that you’ve got to overcome that somehow,” he said.
However, changing the name alone isn’t enough to change someone’s perception of the plant or any brand for that matter —that takes time and money, Bothe said.
Three Mile Island carries a lot of baggage with residents in central Pennsylvania, who are haunted by the trauma of the partial meltdown 45 years ago when 100,000 people were forced to flee.
Changing perceptions also requires working with the community, communication, safety assurances, and living up to its promises for the new brand to take hold, he said.
Constellation is seeking the NRC’s approval to bring Unit 1 back online by 2028, that would be nine years after the plant was shut down amid financial woes. Microsoft entered into a 20-year agreement with Constellation to buy all the zero-emission energy the plant produces to help meet the tech company’s pledge of becoming carbon negative by 2030.
Bothe said given Microsoft’s carbon reduction pledge, it’s understandable Constellation wants clean energy in the name. Naming the plant after a person known for helping to shape the nuclear energy also is understandable.
But he added, “The challenge is this site has already been branded and how do you change that perception. It’s pretty risky for Microsoft to have an association there because if there is a failure, it really will affect Microsoft’s brand. Hopefully, they’ve taken all that into account and not just think oh, this would be cheaper to redo a plant” than build new.
Hanson said Constellation’s request to change the plant’s name isn’t an effort to erase the plant’s history.
Rather, he said, “I’m hoping to move past it and recognize it for what it was and what it did for the industry to create such high level performance across not only our nation but the world. If you think about where nuclear has come from since that accident in ’79, no one can argue that we haven’t learned the lessons, that we have better operator training, that we have better reliability, better oversight, the whole soup to nuts.
“Nuclear is in a much stronger position than in ’79.”
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