The article says the reactor they are bringing back on was active until as recently as 2019, so it's safe to say it's probably not uninhabitable.

Unit 2 is the reactor that melted down and it has been shut down ever since (and partially decommissioned). Unit 1, a separate reactor at the same site, was operated normally until 2019 when it was shut down due to high costs. It was originally scheduled to be decommissioned by 2079 (sic) but is now being brought back online.

The Wikipedia page makes it seem like it's been largely cleaned up for decades:

> In 1988, the NRC announced that, although it was possible to further decontaminate the Unit 2 site, the remaining radioactivity had been sufficiently contained as to pose no threat to public health and safety.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident

No.

Chernobyl (which was a far worse accident) continued to produce power at other units on the same site for 14 years after the meltdown of unit 4.

Cost varies with the site conditions. It's one of the many things that push nuclear construction costs up; every build needs to take into consideration the geographic nature of the site (bedrock levels, etc) and so every location requires customizations to the design.

With that said, while it doesn't provide numbers, the article does say the refurbishment (costing $1.6 billion, estimated) will be cheaper than a new build. It'll also likely be much faster, projected to open in 2028.

A quick google search puts construction costs of new nuclear of a Unit 2 size in the $5-10 billion range. 3 Mile Island itself was constructed for $2 billion in 2024 inflation-adjusted dollars. All in all, refurbishing sounds like a good bargain compared to a green field build.

There's not much to go off of on this subject in the US - only two successful reactor projects have been started since the 70s: Units 3 and 4 at Vogtle in Georgia*. They cost $15 billion each and bankrupted the remnants of Westinghouse (in combination with a similar project in South Carolina which was never finished).

*Many reactors started construction in the 70s and were finished in the 80s or 90s, plus Watts Bar Unit 2 which was started in 1972 and finished in 2016 for a total of $5 billion. The US also of course builds many naval reactors.

Beat for beat it would probably be cheaper to get the Chinese to do it.Cost per watt charts [1] show US builds still high while they are decreasing for the rest.

Apart from the obvious labour costs difference , theres also the skills at scale.Chinese have been on a continous buildout of new plants , so at this point they have designs/skilled teams for whom this is another routine at this point(i think 30+ under construction concurrently).The US builds are almost artisinal at this point.

And yeah at $1B , given prior examples , it expect them to be late and costs to baloon.Unless they use this as a template to upskill/retrain a workforce that will lead a new buildout so economies of scale take over and put downward pressure on the costs.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/22/climate/china...

It's right in the article:

> The debt facility is being made through the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which was formed under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to foster the growth of clean energy technologies

and, more importantly:

> The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed during the Biden administration, created another pot of money under the LPO known as the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program. That program was created to restore existing power plants to operation provided they avoid or reduce pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions. The Trump administration kept it largely in tact, rebranding it the Energy Dominance Financing Program.

It's in the article.

> The debt facility is being made through the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office (LPO), which was formed under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to foster the growth of clean energy technologies.

> The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed during the Biden administration, created another pot of money under the LPO known as the Energy Infrastructure Reinvestment program. That program was created to restore existing power plants to operation provided they avoid or reduce pollutants or greenhouse gas emissions. The Trump administration kept it largely in tact, rebranding it the Energy Dominance Financing Program.

Congress passed the Energy Policy act of 2005 and then the Inflation Reduction Act allocating money to the DoE to make these loans.

Looks like this falls under existing congressionally appropriated spending for the DOE

Number 55 when sorted alphabetically, if you're talking about the USA.