New York governor Andrew Cuomo has announced plans to shut down the zero carbon Indiana Point Nuclear Plant, as part of his grand strategy to combat climate change.
New York Aims to Replace Nuclear Power With Clean Energy
Gov. Cuomo promises declining carbon emissions even as the state closes the Indian Point nuclear power plant.
By Jeremy Deaton
New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced plans this week to close the Indian Point nuclear power plant, which supplies electricity to New York City and surrounding areas. The plant’s two working reactors — which account for roughly 10 percent of the state’s power generation — are slated to go offline in 2020 and 2021, more than a decade ahead of schedule.
Some environmentalists celebrated the closure. Others lamented the loss of a carbon-free source of energy, despite nuclear power’s potential hazards to humans and wildlife.
…
Some states, like Illinois, have thrown a lifeline to nuclear, subsidizing struggling plants, lest they be replaced by carbon-spewing natural gas. New York, by contrast, is betting that the hole created by Indian Point’s closure will be filled with solar, wind and hydropower.
In a statement, Cuomo said the plant’s closure won’t drive up emissions “at the regional level.” Given New York’s ambitious climate policies, he might be right.
…
Read more: https://nexusmedianews.com/new-york-aims-to-replace-nuclear-power-with-clean-energy-468de752634
New York may have the hydro resources to replace Indiana Point, but even dispatchable hydro-electric systems have their pitfalls. States which rely heavily on hydro power face difficulties if the water runs out, as the Australian state of Tasmania recently discovered.
Having said that, it seems likely that New York has or will have enough interstate power interconnectors to ensure continuity, which will allow Governor Cuomo to virtue signal all he wants from behind a safety net of reliable out of state fossil fuel power sources.
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I sure hope that my energy costs don’t increase as oil and natural gas is sent from the red states (OK, TX, etc) to the elites on the coasts. However, I would support a surcharge or increased transportation fees to get the essential fuels to those areas. Of course, they could allow more drilling in their states.
I wonder if the solar and wind industries have any plans to restore their sites once the panels or the turbines go bad. In Oklahoma, the OERB ( http://www.oerb.com/ ) is funded by oil and gas producers as well as royalty owners to help restore abandoned well sites.
Liz, coal companies have to post a huge cash fund to pay for restoration of federal land, once the coal has been removed. Wind farms? Not so much. Those things will never go away.
And they are a blight on the land, worse than cell towers. At least cell towers have an actual and beneficial use, unlike wind turbines, once they are dead they just stand there and drip oil.
You can just see all of truck mounted generators at each corner to keep the lights on. Love it.
Another example of why the Left is unfit to lead in the U.S. This is just delusional to want to shut this nuclear plant early. It makes no sense.
Cuomo should be proposing building more nuclear plants, not proposing to shut them down.
A good economic climate includes having cheap, dependable energy at your disposal, and this proposal of Cuomo’s will cause businesses to raise these questions. A mental roadblock to establishing a new business in New York.
Another mental roadblock to doing business in New York would be it having a governor who would suggest such an ignorant thing as closing a working nuclear plant in order to replace it with bird-choppers, and other “renewable” insanity.
One good thing about it: Each State in the Union gets to forge its own path, and if a moron in New York decrees something, that doesn’t obligate any of the other States to follow him off the cliff.
We will just sit back and reap the benefit of businesses locating in our neighborhood rather than in Cuomo’s neighborhood. Thanks, Andrew.
The left is unfit to lead anywhere, not just the USA.
‘carbon spewing natural gas’? Huh? What kind of natural gas would that be?
Good catch.
Coal gas. It used to supply heating and lighting in England.
This is the same Cuomo that saved the Fitzpatrick plant upstate at Oswego with extra rates for at least the next 12 years. So Cuomo says upstate plants are safe and downstate are not.
“..New York, by contrast, is betting…”
Not something governments should do.
If we really wanted to force tNew York to deal with the consequences of their foolish decision,we would be working to cut them off from energy imports from neighboring states.
My wife and I visited Indian point many years ago when it was first commissioned. We had a wonderful tour. Did you know that oil was used at that time to superheat the steam. I don’t know if this is still the case. We were free then. Security bull shit was not an issue. The steam turbine appeared to be about 6 feet diameter driving this huge generator the size of a locomotive. It was very impressive. So much for the past with the loons today. I believe each generation is getting more stupid than the previous. BTW I did. take some nuclear engineering in MIT (the field of the future) back in 1954-1958
There are two issues here. Cuomo did not ‘force’ Entergy to shut althoughnhe has been urging it given greenie pressure. Unit 2 was licensed on 1973 for 40 years, renewed for 20 in 2015. Unit 3 was licensed in 1975 for 40, and renewed for 20 in 2015. Unit 2 will close after 47 years, unit 3 after 46. Unit 2 is the most trouble prone reactor still operating in the US. These are very old gen 2 PWR designs. Unit 1, a gen 1 design operated from 1962-1974 when permanently shut because did not comply with then NRC safety standards. So Entergy has made a business decision based on economics.
Second issue is what replaces the 2000Mw of dispatchable capacity. It wont be wind and solar. Most likely is dispatchable power from Quebec Hydro, although a new CCGT would be feasible and very economic if NY woild permit the Macellus pipeline to Boston it is currently blocking.
What about the powerline situation from Quebec. My understanding is they want to block new HV powerlines, which means the NY City has a supply problem, as there is not enough transmission capacity to the city itself. Upstate NY enjoys low cost power!
@ur momisugly Ristvan… Ahhhhh, finally someone with some actual facts to shed light on the equation. Thanks again for the vent-free input.
Les do you trust lawyers with facts?
“most trouble prone reactor”
Compared to what? Certainly not natural gas pipelines.
“These are very old gen 2 PWR designs.”
Like the ones China is not building.
Would ristvan like to comment on ‘very old’ automobile design with four wheels?
The reactor core is a new design every refueling outage.
What prevents nuclear plants from being upgraded to the latest tech?
The site is already cleared by every regulator or could be grandfathered.
Seems to me this would be the best solution.
What do you think?
For starts, the Dept. of Energy regs. Plus it would cost a lot more to design up to date equipment to fit into an old plant. Essentially they’d have to gut the building and shoehorn in the new equpment. It would be cheaper to tear it all down and start fresh.
I’ve got no problem cleaning the place up first but since the site is already approved for a nuclear power plant and that seems to be a major obstacle, it should speed up the process for a new install.
Nuke plants are always being updated with new technology after approval from the NRC when it can shown to be better. For example, digital control systems are replacing older analog systems.
I think there is a misconception about nuke plants.
There is a huge difference between my first car, a ‘60 Ford Falcon, and the cars being built today. My first commercial nuke plant based on improvements from the first generation is very similar to plants under construction today.
Ristvan is mostly right about replacement power for Indian Point. Hydro is more complex. Power from Hydro-Quebec is mostly purchased on a long term, firm basis, not spot purchases. There will indeed be some additional purchase by NYPA as a result of the shutdown.
New RE will indeed be a fig-leaf. What will happen is much higher utilization rates of existing gas-fired CTUs. And for all the handwaving, don’t expect any shutdowns of NY state’s existing coal-fired capacity either.
No, neither of these reactors is particularly trouble-prone. Both had good operating performances in 2015, running at 98% and 82%, respectively. And their lifetime operating capacities are also good.
You sound like someone who works for General Dynamics Electric Boat or Bechtel, people who know a little something about building nuclear electric generation systems.
Didn’t Andrew Cuomo already do enough damage to our country?
July 29, 1999 – [HUD Sec Andrew] CUOMO ANNOUNCES ACTION [Regulations] TO PROVIDE $2.4 TRILLION IN MORTGAGES FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING FOR 28.1 MILLION FAMILIES
http://archives.hud.gov/news/1999/pr99-131.html
That was $2.4 trillion in sub-prime mortgages folks.
But hey – let’s blame that on President George W Bush – our national media decided.
Good point, garyh.
Cuomo and a lot of other Democrats spawned the bank crisis of 2008, not George W. Bush. This forced the banks to make bad loans which they tried to recoup by creating investment products to sell other investors that were made up of these bad loans. At some point this scheme had to collapse and when it did, we had the financial crisis.
Lots of blame to go around, but none of it belongs to George W. Bush. Bush is just the latest whipping boy of the Left. You will notice the Left always blames any problems on anyone but themselves. That’s standard operating procedure: Never admit blame. And they don’t admit blame, to the public, or to themselves.
But, the Bush administration must have liked it because they did nothing to stop it.
He had two terms to identify and prevent the mortgage problem.
This is where I expect Trump and his people to excel.
The President is at ther mercy/benefit of any number of economic policies. Not sure why the Bush admin was supposed to see the mortgage crisis coming and somehow fixing it. Taking action very well could have risked being the trigger. The games the Fed has been playing for the last 8 yrs luckily haven’t backfired, so Obama escapes relatively unscathed.
Bush actually expended a great deal of effort over a number of years trying to reign in the risk. Here’s one account:
New Agency Proposed to Oversee Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae “The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.” NY Times Sept. 10, 2003.
The last couple of paragraphs give a hint as to how the Democrats and the national media would portray his efforts . . uncaring . . racist.
But you are correct, and I have made your point time and time again. Still – it’s important to understand who created the entire saga and those who protected those who created it, keeping the American people in the dark.
Still waiting for one national journalist to ask Andrew Cuomo (and many many others) questions.
When anyone tries to stop the madness, that person or group is called heartless, racist, and …more.
Housing policy has been based on the idea that a nation of homeowners is a good thing, so many policies are adopted to achieve that end. It would be better to simply give money to people and let them buy the housing they need. Instead, programs are set up to take other people’s money and pass it through a half-dozen agencies, each using a chunk, and most not doing any good for those that really need a home. Although not the first time, in the 1970s there was a massive loss via HUD programs. That made the government look bad and the programs were redirected so the (expected) failures could be blamed on greedy bankers.
None of this is surprising, but it is sad.
The Bush administration tried to tighten oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but Democrats would hear nothing of it. At the time, they thought it was ridiculous to even imply there was a problem.
“As ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, [Barney] Frank blocked tightened oversight over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, saying in 2003, “These two entities … are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” and, “I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing.”
But that doesn’t stop Democrats from blaming Bush for letting them get away with blocking his reforms.
It was a law. Only congress change change laws.
Actually, no. It IS a regulation, not a law, duly passed by Congress. So a President CAN make it go away with the stroke of a pen.
“Bush actually expended a great deal of effort over a number of years trying to reign in the risk.”
Another good point and post by you, garyh.
Is it Indiana Point or Indian Point?
Indian – as in the Lone Ranger’s scout, Tonto
A government has been brought down by their renewable scheme!
“Northern Ireland will go to the polls on 2 March to elect a new Assembly after the executive collapsed over a botched green energy scheme.
Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire was legally obliged to call the election after negotiations failed.
Stormont was plunged into crisis after the resignation of Martin McGuinness as deputy first minister last week.
The catalyst was the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme, which is likely to cost taxpayers £490m.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-38641857
The Main Stream Media doesn’t like to give the details of this incompetence/corruption (or choose an alternative word).
Basically, the scheme offered up to a £160 rebate for every £100 spent on wood pellets used for heating. The problem was that it didn’t matter what was being heated, for how long and without any limit. Various people/cronies took advantage of this to set up heating any buildings (including unused barns etc and pocketed the difference.
The main tv outlets in Britain just refer to renewable schemes being overused leading to higher than estimated costs as if it was a sensible scheme with unforeseeable consequences!
SteveT
Ridiculous… Even if they don’t use the power themselves, some other state I’m sure would be happy to buy it, and it’s less CO2 emissions than Coal or natural gas (to use their own argument), so in the big picture shutting down the Nuclear Plant is increasing CO2 even if NY plans on replacing all of that capacity with Wind, Solar, or other.
The main reason for Nuclear cost is the startup costs. Once that’s done it’s near-criminal to shut it down before you need to.
I am a ‘carbon-spewing’ person. I like carbon-spewing things like me.
Does that make you a soot spewer???? Yes, it does.
TD?
Oh yeah!
soot spewer for sure.
There will soon be a new Nobel Prize for Carbon Spewing!
I drove through that area on the 7th January. There was lots of radio advertising supporting the plant.
Contrast this to upstate NY, where they are subsidizing a nuclear plant at Oswego to stay operational. Seems like a case of NIMBY for democrat party donors to me. If you want to see some irony, look up the April 29, 1986 front page of the NY times. It has the story about Chernobyl, and a story about Cuomo senior presenting a legislative plan to combat corruption. Cuomos and corruption are often in the same story!
New York will not be building any new hydroelectric plants either. Way too much local opposition everywhere (unless they can find existing dams with unused potential.)
Of course, the plant is not closing for at least five years, with the option to stay open after that. The agreement includes this: “Entergy [the owner of Indian Point] will request that the NRC shorten the term of a renewed license for Indian Point from 2033 and 2035 for Units 2 and 3, respectively, to 2024 and 2025.”
The news is that some sort of agreement was reached, but the details are not being reported accurately in the MSM….although they are available.
Oh noes!
Are you claiming they’re providing fake news?
Who needs reliable power in a stagnant state economy losing population?
Sounds to me that closing that plant rather than “upgrading/refurbishing it” is just plain stupid:
They’re not going to stop.
Both Hollywood and New York will become the next Chicago disgrace. Filled with the empty shells of spoiled rich liberals who touted Obamaisk income redistribution leaving behind now violent streets populated by those who could not escape the failed notions of these liberal rich idiots now tanning themselves under an equatorial Sun.
The way forward for New York is incredibly simple. Want decreased pollution? Rid yourself of systemic job killing regulations. Only in the freedom garden of self-determination will you find clean air and crystal water. Proven fact.
If he was really serious, Cuomo would take New York off the national grid. Let’s see how everything goes then.
It is astounding how misinformed some people are. The safest way of all to generate electricity is nuclear: http://www.nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html
It is not astounding at all. Logic, science common sense and efficiency have nothing to do with it – at ALL!
To Dan Pangburn: >The safest way of all to generate electricity is nuclear< Tell that to the people in Russia and Japan.
Compare the number of people killed in nuclear vs. other types of power plants.
Then compare the number of people killed mining for coal and drilling for oil vs. mining for uranium.
You will find that nuclear is way safer, even considering the outliers such as Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Marty what do you want me to tell the people of Japan? No one was hurt by radiation let alone killed.
An unprecedented natural disaster resulted in the loss of life for 20,000 and property damage at nuclear power plants.
I think questioning authority is a good thing. In Japan getting to higher ground than the authorities was necessary would have saved many.
In the USSR, the evil empire, questioning authority would get you shot. Many firemen were ordered at gunpoint to save property which resulted a fatal dose of radiation.
The tragic loss of life in the USSR occurred in gulags.
The ” people in Russia and Japan.” are dumb f**ks who did dumb f**king sh*t.
Honestly…..you just couldn’t make this stuff up….seriously?
To shutdown the nuclear plant and replace it with anything, will require carbon dioxide emissions. Evidently the shutdown doesn’t have anything to do with reducing CO2 emissions.
“Some environmentalists celebrated the closure. Others lamented the loss of a carbon-free source of energy, despite nuclear power’s potential hazards to humans and wildlife.”
Go to Chernobyl, wildlife is doing just fine only humans prevent humans from entering the area.