Word arrived that old reactors were being asked for more. Ambrose: Constellation will spend over four point three billion on eleven reactors. Pim: up-rate, they're getting a raise! The Toll Keeper: an uprate; new turbines and pumps, so old plants make more. Prudence: eight hundred ninety megawatts; seven hundred thousand homes, lit by nothing new.
Rather than build new nuclear plants, companies are squeezing more power out of old reactors: Constellation will spend more than $4.3 billion to upgrade 11 reactors at six plants in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, adding 890 megawatts, enough for about 700,000 homes, and such uprates could add 6,000 to 8,000 megawatts nationwide, about six to eight big new reactors, with tech giants eager to pay as AI drives up power demand.
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Squeezing More Power Out of Plants Is Trending
The New York Times · Oct 12, 2026
