Cuomo's Nuclear Disaster Comes At The Sixth Seal (Rev 6:12)

Andrew Cuomo’s coming nuclear disaster

By Christine Todd Whitman

December 7, 2015 | 8:41pm  

Indian Point nuclear power plant. Photo: AP

While negotiators in Paris were hammering out a new agreement to reduce greenhouse gases, New York state announced a plan to reduce its carbon emissions 40 percent by 2030. And yet the state is, at the same time, making it virtually impossible to do so.

Any energy plan that clearly recognizes the role nuclear energy has in reducing dangerous emissions should be welcomed by all New Yorkers — and would be if it wasn’t clear that the state is picking and choosing which nuclear-power facilities should stay open at the expense of taxpayers, especially those in New York City.

The new plan to transition the state to a lower-carbon-energy portfolio includes developing a process to prevent the premature closure of nuclear plants upstate.

While it comes too late to save Entergy Corp.’s FitzPatrick plant in Oswego — slated to close within two years — the plan appears to be designed to throw a lifeline to another upstate facility: the Ginna nuclear power plant in the upstate town of Ontario.

This fall, owner Exelon and grid operator Rochester Gas & Electric worked out an agreement that will keep Ginna operating through March 2017. Beyond that, the plant’s fate remains uncertain due to economic pressures caused by an electricity market flooded with low-cost natural gas.

The troubling contradiction is that the state is also taking action to shut down Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, the single best tool New York City has to help meet carbon-reduction goals.

As the state has recognized, nuclear energy not only supports the state’s emission goals, but also keeps electricity bills low and stable for citizens. However, on Nov. 16, the state asked the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to deny the relicensing of Indian Point.

As the former administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency and governor of New Jersey, I find this request unsettling at best.

For decades, nuclear energy has safely served as the backbone of the Northeast’s carbon-free energy supply. In fact, Indian Point alone generates 25 percent of New York City’s electricity and 10 percent of the electricity for all New Yorkers. Moreover, the two reactors at Indian Point produce about one-quarter of the state’s carbon-free electricity.

The entire debate around extending the operation of Indian Point becomes even more important when you consider its role in meeting the EPA’s Clean Power Plan.

Under these climate rules, New York must reduce 3.3 million short tons of carbon dioxide by 2030. Removing Indian Point, which prevents the release of 9.3 million short tons of carbon dioxide a year, would make this requirement significantly harder to meet.

To put these numbers in perspective, the amount of carbon dioxide the state would need to reduce, to make up for Indian Point’s closure, is the equivalent of the annual greenhouse-gas emissions of more than 2.4 million passenger cars.

Clean, affordable and reliable — these are the necessary elements for sound energy plans as states like New York look to meet their emissions-reductions requirements under the Clean Power Plan. The one large-scale source of energy that meets these requirements is nuclear energy.

Albany’s plan to mandate renewable-energy sources even recognizes the value of nuclear energy — although the state only seems to see a place for the low rates and reliable power for upstate residents.

New York shouldn’t be picking when and where nuclear energy should be allowed to operate. The state should be supporting all of its clean-energy industry, not standing against it.

We should be working to prevent well-operated, safe and efficient US nuclear energy facilities like Indian Point from shutting down prematurely.

Christine Todd Whitman, former NJ governor and former Environmental Protection Agency administrator, is president of The Whitman Strategy Group and co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition.