New York does not have a well-thought through energy plan that to implemented the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Plan Act. New York talks renewables, but does gas.
By allowing Indian Point to close, a tacit decision was made by state regulators to keep dirty fossil-fuel plants within environmental justice communities running instead. This outcome was not just engineered by politicians and fossil-fuel lobbyists. By fighting nuclear power without understanding the real-world challenges of electricity production and impacts associated with all forms of energy, a number of mainstream environmental groups have also hindered progress on climate change and helped to perpetuate gas.
“I have championed Mark Jacobson’s paradigm and analysis for replacing all energy— not just electricity — with ‘100 percent wind, water and sunlight.’.. But even under the most optimistically aggressive timetables, it will be at least one decade and possibly several before it can be said that Jacobson’s turbines are doing Indian Point’s climate good deeds. That is because every bit of renewable energy and efficiency we can muster needs to go to replace fossil fuels, not to replace a different zero-carbon source. Not until the New York electric grid has been reconstituted to the point that “replacement” power comes from renewables rather than fossil fuels can it be said that Indian Point’s climate benefit is now being supplied by solar or wind.”
[T]he 2017 announcement that the plant would shut down… rankled some in Buchanan, the town of Cortlandt and the Hendrick Hudson schools that they weren’t at the table when the deal was signed. After all, the decision came with steep financial consequences for them – a combined loss of $32 million in annual tax revenue. “No one ever looked at the human factor,” Buchanan Mayor Knickerbocker said. “How is it going to affect human beings? How is it going to affect their lives. Well, now we’re going to see.”
Closing Indian Point Power Plant will have adverse COVID-19 health consequences (Letter from Gene Nelson, Ph.D. Legal Assistant, Californians for Green Nuclear Power, Inc. (CGNP) to Thomas D. Matte, M.D. MPH Vice President for Environmental Health Vital Strategies Senior Lecturer Environmental Health Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University – Apr 16, 2020)
Replacing the 16 terawatt-hours of carbon-free electricity that is now being produced by the twin-reactor plant with wind turbines will require 1,300 times as much territory as what is now covered by Indian Point.
We urge you to postpone the scheduled permanent shutdown of the Indian Point Unit 2 just as NY may face maximum stress from the pandemic. The 2017 Closure Agreement allows the shutdown to be delayed in the event of an “energy emergency.”
“A person living for decades in a county with high levels of fine particulate matter is 15% more likely to die from the coronavirus than someone in a region with one unit less of the fine particulate pollution.” Nuclear Power emits virtually no air pollution vs. the massive methane gas plants slated to replace Indian Point.
The essential point here is that electric grids — particularly those in densely populated cities like New York — should not be too reliant on any one thing, be it a transformer, transmission line, fuel source or generation facility.
Letter to Governor Cuomo on how to secure the electric grid “We ask you to invoke this emergency clause and keep IP-2 in operation or, at a minimum, put it into a standby mode with its operating license intact and the ability to be brought back online quickly if needed.”
The inconvenient truth is that New York plans to shut down Indian Point years before it can even hope to build enough reliable renewable power to replace it, ensuring carbon lock-in for decades to come. Melissa De Rosa, Cuomo’s executive secretary, recently commented on the importance of “being able to evolve and change in real-time as facts and circumstances change”.
“While Riverkeeper, the Westchester-based environmental group that has spearheaded the decades-long push to close Indian Point, may have moved on, the rest of us will be dealing with its fallout, namely its environmental damage – particularly to low-income communities – and the setback to the ambitious climate goals of the state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.”
NY points to wind projects offshore Long Island as the sole large-scale clean replacement for Indian Point. However, these are in federal waters and the Trump administration’s recent reviews will delay the deployment by at least one year, according to the CEO of Vineyard Wind
“Cuomo’s professed environmentalism is being put to the test. The impending closure of Indian Point… means that New York needs new sources of energy….the shortage has so far been addressed by building new natural-gas-burning power plants.”
