U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced on November 18 that the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office has finalized a $1 billion loan to help lower energy costs and restart a Pennsylvania nuclear power plant. The funding will support Constellation Energy Generation, LLC in financing the Crane Clean Energy Center, an 835 MW facility located on the Susquehanna River in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania. This loan marks a major step toward restoring reliable, carbon-free power to the region.
Energy Secretary Wright highlighted further,
“Thanks to President Trump’s bold leadership and the Working Families Tax Cut, the United States is taking unprecedented steps to lower energy costs and bring about the next American nuclear renaissance. Constellation’s restart of a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania will provide affordable, reliable, and secure energy to Americans across the Mid-Atlantic region. It will also help ensure America has the energy it needs to grow its domestic manufacturing base and win the AI race.”
Constellation (Nasdaq: CEG) is the first company to receive a simultaneous conditional loan commitment and financial close from the DOE Loan Programs Office. Its strong finances and credit rating allowed the process to move quickly. The loan, provided through the Energy Dominance Financing Program, will lower financing costs and attract private investment to restart the plant. In addition, DOE noted the project will help the U.S. stay competitive in the global AI and digital economy, which is driving higher electricity demand.
Crane Clean Energy Center: Returning 835 MW of Carbon-Free Power
The Crane Clean Energy Center is an 835-megawatt nuclear plant on the Susquehanna River. Previously known as Three Mile Island Unit 1, it has a long and historic legacy. In March 1979, Three Mile Island Unit 2 suffered a partial meltdown and has remained in monitored storage ever since. Unit 1, however, continued operating safely for four decades before being shut down in September 2019 due to market conditions rather than safety concerns.
In September 2024, Constellation signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft, which allows the tech giant to buy the carbon-free electricity generated by the restarted plant. Following the agreement, Constellation rebranded the facility as the Crane Clean Energy Center. As said before, once operational, the plant will provide 835 MW of nuclear energy.
DOE Loan Accelerates the Restart
Constellation (Nasdaq: CEG) is the first company to receive a simultaneous conditional loan commitment and financial close from the DOE Loan Programs Office. Its strong finances and credit rating allowed the process to move quickly. The loan, provided through the Energy Dominance Financing Program, will lower financing costs and attract private investment to restart the plant. In addition, DOE noted the project will help the U.S. stay competitive in the global AI and digital economy, which is driving higher electricity demand.
DOE stated that the Crane loan aligns with President Trump’s Executive Order on Reinvigorating the Nuclear Industrial Base. The project is the first under this administration to receive a simultaneous conditional commitment and financial close.
Because the reactor was never fully decommissioned, restarting it is faster and more cost-effective than building a new plant. The loan will fund equipment inspections, system upgrades, workforce training, and regulatory compliance. Once approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the plant will supply enough electricity to power about 800,000 homes across the PJM Interconnection region. It will help lower electricity costs, strengthen grid reliability, and create hundreds of jobs.
READ MORE:
- Constellation Secures Groundbreaking $1 Billion Clean Nuclear Energy Deal with Federal Government
- Constellation and Calpine’s $16.4B Deal Boosts U.S. Clean Energy Transition
Pennsylvania Leads in Clean Energy and AI Power
Senator Dave McCormick praised the DOE loan, saying Pennsylvania is leading the nation in energy independence and AI innovation. He highlighted that the restart will deliver more than 800 MW of carbon-free electricity and create 3,400 direct and indirect jobs.
McCormick also noted Constellation’s ongoing investments across the state, including commitments announced at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. The restart comes amid unprecedented electricity demand from AI, cloud computing, and expanding data centers.
A Goldman Sachs report predicts that AI could increase data-center power demand by 160 percent. AI queries, like those used by tools such as ChatGPT, require nearly ten times more electricity than a standard Google search. Nuclear power is vital to meet this growing demand reliably.
Extending Nuclear Plant Life: Constellation’s Strategy for Reliable Power
Constellation has invested in local communities by committing over $1 million in charitable contributions over five years. In 2025 alone, the company donated $200,000 to support nonprofits, workforce programs, and local initiatives.
Significantly, restarting Crane is part of Constellation’s larger multi-billion-dollar plan to extend the life of America’s nuclear fleet, increase output, and ensure reliable power for decades.
The Crane Clean Energy Center is expected to deliver significant economic benefits to Pennsylvania. An analysis by the Pennsylvania Building and Construction Trades Council projected that the restart would create thousands of direct and indirect jobs. It could add more than $16 billion to the state’s GDP and generate over $3 billion in state and federal tax revenue.
The plant is already more than 80 percent staffed, with over 500 employees, including engineers, mechanics, technicians, and licensed operators. Regulatory reviews and technical inspections remain on schedule.
Joe Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation, said:
“DOE’s quick action and leadership is another huge step towards bringing hundreds of megawatts of reliable nuclear power onto the grid at this critical moment. Under the Trump administration, the FERC and DOE have made it possible for us to vastly expedite this restart without compromising quality or safety. It’s a great example of how America first energy policies create jobs, growth and opportunities and make the grid more reliable. Utilities and grid operators are moving too slowly and need to make regulatory changes that will allow our nation to unlock its abundant energy potential. Constellation and nuclear energy are helping to lead the way and we are thankful to President Trump and Secretary Wright for putting the ‘energy’ back into DOE.”
Nuclear Power for America’s Clean Energy Future
The surge in AI, electrification, and cloud computing has made nuclear energy more critical than ever. Small modular reactors and advanced technologies are gaining interest from utilities and data-center developers.
The U.S. produces about 30 percent of the world’s nuclear electricity. Ninety-four reactors supply steady, clean power to millions of homes and industries nationwide. According to the World Nuclear Association, U.S. reactors generated 779 terawatt-hours in 2023, accounting for 19 percent of the nation’s total electricity output.
The administration aims to quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity to 400 gigawatts by 2050. The International Energy Agency projects 35 GW of new capacity by 2035 and 200 GW by 2050, nearly triple current levels. Restarting Crane contributes to this goal while providing reliable baseload power, supporting AI and digital growth, and boosting the economy.
Electricity generation for data centres by fuel in the United States, Base Case, 2020-2035
The Crane Clean Energy Center restart is a key step toward clean, reliable energy. It shows how nuclear power can meet rising electricity needs, support innovation, and strengthen local economies.
The post Constellation Secures $1B DOE Loan to Restart Crane Clean Energy Center and Boost America’s Nuclear Energy Future appeared first on Carbon Credits.
For most businesses, the emissions that matter most sit outside their own walls. Scope 3 emissions, everything generated across your value chain, from the suppliers who make your inputs to the customers who use your products, typically make up the majority of a company’s total carbon footprint. Under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), those value-chain emissions now have to be measured and disclosed with a rigour that spend-based estimates alone struggle to satisfy. This guide sets out how to improve Scope 3 data accuracy for CSRD: the calculation methods open to you, how to move from estimates to verified supplier data, and how to govern that data so it holds up to audit.
A carbon credit is a commitment that extends well into the future. The tonne of CO₂ compensated for today from a nature-based carbon project must remain out of the atmosphere for good, which means the forest behind the credit has to remain standing long after the transaction is complete. For any buyer, this raises a defining question: What ensures that the forest endures?
What replaced the cheap REDD credit on the boardroom slide deck, and why procurement is leading the rewrite.
Three years ago, a corporate slide showing a portfolio of cheap REDD+ credits could carry a board meeting. The number was big, the price was low, and the press release wrote itself. Today, that same slide gets sent back with questions. The questions are uncomfortable, the answers are unclear, and your general counsel is suddenly in the room.
Conventional carbon offsets are not dead. The voluntary carbon market retired 202 million tonnes in 2025, and the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing survey published in January 2026 confirmed that interest from corporate buyers remains substantial. What changed is the credibility threshold. The integrity floor has risen, the disclosure scrutiny has tightened, and the buyer profile has shifted. This article tracks what changed, what sophisticated buyers now ask before signing, and what serious corporates are putting on the board slide instead.
What boards used to buy, and why it stopped working
The 2020 to 2022 model was simple: buy a large tranche of avoidance credits at low single-digit prices, retire them against the company footprint, announce the carbon-neutral claim, and move on. Most of those credits came from REDD+ projects, renewable energy installations in countries where the renewable energy was already economic, or methane projects with thin documentation.
Several things broke that model. Academic research published in 2023, including a widely cited Science paper, found that the majority of REDD+ credits issued under the most common methodologies did not represent additional reductions when tested against rigorous counterfactuals. The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative published its Claims Code of Practice, which sets requirements for what companies can credibly claim from credit use. The European Union finalised its Green Claims Directive, restricting how companies can describe products as climate-neutral. France’s Décret 2022-539 already restricts carbon neutrality advertising. California’s AB 1305 imposes disclosure requirements on any company making net-zero or carbon-neutral claims while doing business in the state.
The collective effect: the cheap credit no longer buys the announcement, and the announcement now carries litigation risk.
The integrity reset: ICVCM, VCMI, and what changed
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market published the Core Carbon Principles in 2023 and began assessing methodologies against them in 2024. The first methodologies received the CCP label later that year. The point of the label is to give corporate buyers a defensible quality screen they can cite in disclosure.
The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative complements this on the demand side. Its Claims Code of Practice defines what a buyer can say (Silver, Gold, or Platinum claims, with associated requirements) based on the quality of credits used and the underlying decarbonisation strategy. Together, CCP and VCMI build a quality stack: CCP on the supply, VCMI on the claim, with the science-based target sitting underneath both.
The reset is not a ban on offsets. It is a ratchet. Credits that meet the new bar continue to clear; credits that do not, do not. The Morgan Stanley survey found that 61% of current buyers like the CCP label concept but that supply of labelled credits remains limited. That supply constraint is now visible in pricing.
What sophisticated buyers ask before they sign
The questions on the procurement scorecard have changed. A 2022 buyer might have asked about price, vintage, and project type. A 2026 buyer asks five different questions before any of those.
- What does the counterfactual look like, and who validated it.
- What is the permanence regime, and what is the buffer pool exposure.
- What is the leakage risk, and how is it mitigated.
- What rating has the project received from the independent ratings agencies (Sylvera, BeZero, Calyx Global), and what was the rationale.
- What is the documentation discipline that survives an audit four years from now when the procurement team that signed the contract has moved on.
If the vendor cannot answer those five questions on a first call, the conversation ends. Conversely, if the vendor can answer them with documented specificity, the conversation often expands beyond a single transaction toward a multi-year engagement.
Where this leaves your near-term commitments
You probably have near-term commitments that pre-date the integrity reset. Public targets to be carbon neutral by 2025 or 2030. Product-level claims that ran in last year’s marketing. Disclosed reduction trajectories that assumed continued access to cheap credits.
You have three workable paths. The first is to re-baseline your strategy, replacing the most exposed credits with higher-quality alternatives and adjusting the public language to match what you can defend. The second is to shift the underlying spend from offsetting outside your value chain to investing inside your value chain, where reductions count against Scope 3 directly and the audit trail is cleaner. The third is to keep the strategy and absorb the risk, which is increasingly the most expensive option once you price in litigation, restatement, and reputational exposure.
Most serious buyers are choosing the second path. It moves the carbon spend from a compliance cost to a procurement and resilience investment, and it removes the central failure point of the legacy model: the disconnect between where the emissions occurred and where the reductions sat. Nature-based supply chain investments, structured under the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard and aligned to the SBTi FLAG Guidance, are the asset class that fits this brief. They generate inventory-grade reductions, they produce audit-grade documentation, and they survive the new claim restrictions because the carbon math sits inside the value chain that the disclosure already covers.
If you are reassessing a carbon strategy under the new integrity bar, or rebuilding a board narrative that has to survive a more skeptical audience, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help. The Dual-Value Model gives you a defensible alternative to legacy offset purchases, with the documentation and operational integration that survives the procurement scorecard and the audit. Schedule a consultation.
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