9:40 am Feb. 22, 201215
Andrew Cuomo has been talking about closing the Indian Point nuclear plant in Westchester for a long time—since shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, during his first, unsuccessful run for governor.
Last summer, Howard Glaser, a top aide to the governor, met in his Capitol office with executives from Entergy, the company that owns Indian Point, and told them that Cuomo was indeed determined to shut it down. And though Cuomo didn't make mention of Indian Point in his January State of the State address, its slate-grey domes provided the grim subtext of his proposal in an accompanying booklet for an “energy highway” that would help meet the “tremendous energy needs” downstate—increasing capacity in anticipation of losing the nuclear plant's considerable output.
The case for closing Indian Point isn't a hard one to make. The plant itself is a creaky anachronism: Its two functioning reactors date to the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, respectively, and one of them has received the highest earthquake-risk rating from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that it's possible to get without being shut down. The recent earthquake and ensuing nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, coupled with the recent discovery that Indian Point doesn’t just sit on the Ramapo Fault Plain but also near the Peekskill-Stamford fault line, has only heightened concern.
“The Fukushima disaster focused everyone, the public, everyone involved in this debate, on the real risks and costs of an accident at a nuclear power plant,” said Kit Kennedy, the clean energy counsel for the National Resources Defense Council, which is fighting for the plant's closure. “And Indian Point is an aging power plant that has experienced all sorts of issues over the last 40 years. The disaster in Fukushima reminds us that we can’t be complacent about those risks and we should be seeking to move to cleaner, safer power sources.”
Cuomo, who once called Indian Point "a catastrophe waiting to happen" and stated in his campaign literature in 2010 that he would push for its closure, said recently, “I’ve had concerns about Indian Point for a long time … This plant in this proximity to New York City was never a good risk."
And yet it's not clear what he's in a position to do about it. The governor's justifiably vaunted abilities to leverage public opinion to achieve his aims, and to apply his powers of persuasion to legislators, might not help much: The nuclear power plant in question is regulated not by the state but by the federal government, and it is owned by the nation’s second-largest nuclear-energy company, which employs an army of well-paid lobbyists in both Albany and Washington. Indian Point may simply be too big for Andrew Cuomo to handle.
In 2010 and 2011, Entergy spent about $1 million on Albany lobbyists like Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, the Vidal Group, and Featherstonhaugh Wiley & Cline, according to public records. On the federal level, in 2010 and 2011, Entergy spent some $8.2 million on lobbyists, including the Breaux Lott Leadership Group and Peck, Madigan, Jones and Stewart, to make their case on energy issues with the legislature and executive branch.
Entergy has been just as unstinting in its spending on the legal front, which manifests itself in the company's ability to respond quickly and exhaustively to perceived threats to the company's interests at the state level.
In 2010, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation decision denied Indian Point a water-quality certificate it needs under the federal Clean Water Act to continue pumping up to 2.5 billion gallons of water from the Hudson River into its plant about 35 miles north of New York City to both create steam and cool its reactors. The plant’s reactors, argued the D.E.C. in its decision, “cause significant adverse environmental impact upon aquatic organisms, particularly fish eggs, larvae, and fish.”
Entergy, not surprisingly, sought to nullify that decision by essentially going over the state's head, telling the federal regulatory commission that the state's decision was invalid, and proceeding with business as usual in the meantime.
“They have enormous legal resources at their disposal,” said Philip Musegaas, Hudson River program director for Riverkeeper, the environmental-legal organization (whose vice chair is Cuomo's former brother-in-law Robert Kennedy Jr.) which is involved in the water-certificate dispute. “Their lawyers outnumber us sometimes three to one.”
ON ANY GIVEN DAY, THERE'S A DECENT CHANCE THAT THE ELECTRICITY you’re using to charge your laptop comes from the massive facility situated on the Hudson River about 35 miles north of New York City. Inside its concrete domes, millions of neutrons bombard uranium atoms, releasing the energy inside them to build steam and spin turbines that send voltage down to Westchester and New York City.
The nuclear energy supplied by Indian Point is abundant—approximately 2,000 megawatts, or enough to power something like 2 million homes—cheap, and relatively clean to produce.
During air-conditioning season, New York City can use more than 11,000 megawatts, about a third of the entire state’s overall energy demand, according to Julia Frayer, an energy consultant at London Economics International. And there's currently not enough excess capacity, if you take Indian Point out of the equation, for the city to use that much energy without stressing the system and risking regular blackouts.
That's where the governor's energy highway comes in, which would form part of a new wave of energy sources that, over time, could replace the capacity that would be lost by shutting Indian Point. There’s a proposed transmission line down from Quebec, which would bring 1,000 megawatts into the city; the Hudson Project, which would string an up-to 660-megawatt line beneath the Hudson from New Jersey; and Cricket Valley Energy’s proposed 1,000-megawatt natural-gas plant to be built in Dutchess County.
There are also are possibilities for adding capacity through the retrofitting of existing power plants in the city, a process known as “repowering,” of which the governor made mention in the book accompanying his State of the State address this year.
“I think that they may be able to get by completely without Indian Point, but at what price, that’s really the ultimate question,” says Frayer, who is consulting with TDI on the Quebec-New York transmission line. “It could be unnecessary from a resource-adequacy perspective.”
In truth, resource adequacy is only one concern, and not necessarily the greatest one, in a big-picture context when it comes to energy in New York. There are also questions of pricing and air pollution, both of which are likely to go up if the nuclear facility is replaced by plants that burn fossil fuels.
“Its retirement will cause a substantial increase in air emissions under all the scenarios analyzed in our study,” said Charles River Associates in a report prepared at the behest of the Bloomberg administration, which opposes Indian Point’s retirement.
Rick Gonzales, the chief operating officer for the state entity charged with maintaining the electric grid, said in his testimony at an Assembly hearing on Indian Point: “The cost to generate electricity from an existing nuclear power facility is likely to be less than any other replacement generation option available. Therefore, the cost of electricity to serve New York may increase if Indian Point is retired. Since the mix of potential replacement supply is not known at this time, it is not possible to determine what the actual cost increases might be.”
What is the typical working lifespan of a nuclear power plant? While dating Indian point "to the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford" certainly sounds scary, is a 40-year-old facility of this sort actually considered anachronistic in the field of nuclear science? To call it "aging," as opponent Kit Kennedy does is obvious; all extant things age as time inexorably marches on.
Ditto the lobbying figures. For a working stiff like me, $8.2 million over two years sounds like a giant pile of cash. But where does that fit in the context of federal lobbying? One wonders if you could even make payroll on K Street with that kind of loot.
As Cuomo attempts to replace this relatively clean energy source—which despite all fear-mongering still hasn't been destroyed by terrorists—more context for facts about nuclear power would be appreciated. So too would a meeting between Cuomo and Mayor Bloomberg, as Mike seems more concerned than the governor about the effect that burning even more fossil fuels might have on already rising sea levels.
While we can all agree that New York needs to vastly upgrade its transmission infrastructure, especially in the downstate region, an “energy superhighway” would be extremely difficult to bring about from a cost and engineering standpoint. Even if it can be and is constructed, there will still be a clear need for power generated by Indian Point.
For maximum benefits to New York, especially in job retention and creation, any such “highway” should support in-state power generation. If we rely too much on out-of- state energy sources, we risk losing many jobs and eventually paying a lot more for imported power. Simply put, the Governor’s energy superhighway, by turning away from New York-based generation will increase rates for upstate ratepayers, while providing no benefit.
The author is correcting in stating that it would be near-impossible to replace the 2000 megawatts of energy generated by Indian Point. It is a vital resource for New York and an essential economic driver.
The author got one thing right when she said “there's currently not enough excess capacity, if you take Indian Point out of the equation, for the city to use that much energy without stressing the system and risking regular blackouts.”
Multiple studies from the New York ISO show that shutting down Indian Point would “drastically” impact electricity reliability, “degrade” the bulk power system, and potentially even lead to “emergency” measures. New York’s electricity demands are only going to increase over the next decade and the loss of such an important power resource would result in both higher electric rates and reduced reliability. One study even found that our rates could rise as much as $2 to $3 billion dollars. We already pay the third highest rates in the US. Can you imagine what that will do to our electric bills? I don’t want to have to!
In case you didn’t notice, we are surrounded by nuclear power plants. We have four nuclear plants in upstate New York which, in addition to Indian Point, provide 30 percent of our state’s power. Our neighbors in Connecticut get 50 percent of their electricity from that state’s two nuclear plants. The same goes for New Jersey, which gets 50 percent of its power from nuclear. And Pennsylvania’s five nuclear plants provide 33 percent of the state’s power. Interestingly, those aren’t named in this story nor are identified by the Governor in his crusade to take down nuclear.
Further, Indian Point itself is “younger” than many of these other plants. Indian Points is also currently in the midst of a major $600 million capital improvement plan, ensuring it will be a world-class facility.
It might also be worth mentioning that there has been significant discussion about constructing new nuclear plants upstate. As much as I am all for the jobs and energy that those plants will create, I am also realistic about the likelihood of being able to get that power downstate. A superhighway is not going to do it. Anyone with basic knowledge of how transmission works can tell you that the further the distance which electricity has to travel, the more of it will be lost as heat. The Governor’s plan will result in higher rates and lower reliability. That is the last thing we need in this economy.
The Westchester Business Alliance also found there would be up to 11,000 additional jobs lost, mostly in the service sector in the Lower Hudson Valley, as a direct result of the plant shutdown. This is in addition to the jobs lost at the plant itself. New York would also send out a clear message it is “not open for business” thus hindering growth in many key industries.
Communities near the plant would also see devastation to their school districts, as much needed property taxes would be gone.
With regards to safety, it is incorrect that one of the Indian Point plants has “received the highest earthquake-risk rating from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.” Rather, MSNBC compiled this based on NRC information – and the NRC took very serious issue with those conclusions.
Indian Point has received the NRC’s highest safety rating of green for the last six years in a row. The plant undergoes multiple safety evaluations each year and most recently underwent an exhaustive, unprecedented, five-year license renewal evaluation by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and found to be a safe facility.
Rich Thomas
Director, New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance (New York A.R.E.A.)
New York, like a scene from all those movies, so wrote Simon & Garfunkel. It behooves me to bring to New York's attention that as seen on TV 1 billion tons of waste is sent off to the landfill per year globally. Yes we recycle first as always we hope.
But the leftovers are covered up in the landfill. What a puny plan. The trash is left to rot in the ground. Forever. Unless it goes into the Plasma Furnace where the waste is dried on the way in to the Plasma by its incredible heat, 20,000 degrees, Chunks of concrete, your kitchen left overs, dried diapers, it all goes into the Plasma Arc and POOF! The tremendous heat turns water to steam in pipes to drive all the turbines you want!
The hungry energetic particles consumes what otherwise just sits lifeless in the landfill! As mentioned before was New York's huge barges of rubbish have met their match, pun intended! Like the Furnace in the Bible only it is a Plasma Furnace!
Hopefully there is a way because the global rubbish problem needs a real solution. It is right in your waste basket not the coal seam or the nuke plant which is about as efficient as a wood fired Civil War era steam locomotive. Plus the energetics of plasma can remediate nuclear waste!! The advantages of the Plasma are no off gassing of dangerous pollutants released into the air , no radiation problems or waste like a nuke plant and our soil and ground water are protected. How about that Abe....
Cuomo has moneyed backers seeking to cash in on the misery to follow on any Cuomo closure of Indian Point. This money is important politically as the core of support for Mr. Cuomo's 2016 presidential run. If he closes the plant, New Yorkers will suffer the intended misery, his backers will jump in to take advantage ( and "solve" the misery), and a vast store of wealth will be created to make Cuomo's candidacy seem "inevitable".
This is the unreported "Back Story" laying behind Cuomo's opposition, and it bears no relation to the needs of New York's people.
Riverkeeper was a great pioneer in enviro-activism in the 1980's, but today is a victim of its own success--- it has no important mission except self-preservation, and in truth can only push for change that will hurt everyone.
America will soon learn that eating its own infrastructure to satisfy political ambitions or NGO agendas is a losing game. Why not use what is already built, already performing its job, instead of talking Alinskyite nonsense?
This link has come to my attention:
http://tinyurl.com/3k3x2f2
I wonder what NY State has done to enhance building codes and to retrofit existing structures to meet the addres the new information regarding the Rampano fault. Surely officials don't think that the earthquake would only damage the plant and nothing else. Or do they?? If I were living in that area I would be very concerned about my house, tall buildings, the mall, the grocery store, the bridges.... etc. I know for a fact that the plant can withstand the earthquake and there will be a lot of people wishing they had been at the plant when the quake strikes.
Indian Point’s continued operation is essential for New York’s economic recovery and growth. Closing the plant, which provides 25 percent of the electricity to the City and surrounding region on a typical day, would be devastating. According to a study commissioned last summer by the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the loss of Indian Point would result in $300 million annually in higher electricity costs for New York City residents alone. The Westchester Business Alliance also found there would be up to 11,000 additional jobs lost, mostly in the service sector in the Lower Hudson Valley, as a direct result of the plant shutdown. This is in addition to the jobs lost at the plant itself. New York would also send out a clear message it is “not open for business” thus hindering growth in many key industries. Communities near the plant would also see devastation to their school districts, as much needed property taxes would be gone. With regards to safety, it is incorrect that one of the Indian Point plants has “received the highest earthquake-risk rating from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.” Rather, MSNBC compiled this based on NRC information – and the NRC took very serious issue with those conclusions. Indian Point has received the NRC’s highest safety rating of green for the last six years in a row. The plant undergoes multiple safety evaluations each year and most recently underwent an exhaustive, unprecedented, five-year license renewal evaluation by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and found to be a safe facility.
Rich Thomas
Director, New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance (New York A. R.E.A.)
Need I remind everyone that the NRC awarded Vermont Yankee its new license despite the fact that the plant has been operating without a water permit from the state. So what makes us think that New York will be any different?
If this facility is as critical as the data suggests, then it is imperative that all possible safety precautions be taken to keep it operational in case of disaster. A five year plan is a ridiculous approach to safety when millions of lives and and perhaps billions of dollars are at risk. We need action NOW - before it is too late !
The Indian Point facility safety flaws are well known, and have been reviewed, tracked, commented on, reported on and pontificated upon for some years now. It has earned a barely passing grade. I'm sure I'm not alone in wondering if even that grade was higher than it would have been had this facility not been serving the NYC metro area.
40 years is a long, long time for any endeavor utilizing electronics. Realistically, the systems in place to monitor, control and restore service in case of an incident are utilizing and dependent on a combination of technical and manual processes that are contemporary with eight track tape, record players, black and white TV's and the Atari Pong, first ever video game. The local corner store newsstand in NYC has more advanced electronics tracking the status of the ATM in service, the temperature of the refrigerator, the receipts from the lotto machines, and internet based physical security systems. The average cell phone has more computer capacity than what is used to monitor the nuclear facility.
Banks and telcos spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually, installing the latest in computerized monitoring technologies, driving toward sub-second response, simply to monitor the status of communications links that run their trading business units. Any outage in these systems is treated with the utmost seriousness, with contracts in place to repair those systems in minutes and hours. Severe penalties accrue by the hour for failure to bring those systems into compliance. That's for safe guarding the integrity of banking accounts.
Perhaps society can spare some small percentage of that same due diligence to monitor nuclear facilities close to major metropolitan areas for nuclear meltdowns.
I propose we don't renew the Indian Point facility's license to do business until it proves it has at least the same level of monitoring and processing technology that we require of the NYC yellow taxi fleet. NYC taxis can't operate without the proper technology in place. Why should nuclear power plants be allowed to?
Ben Rivera
Information Technology Manager
New York City
Kudos to the author for covering this story so well.
What was unsaid, however, was that allowing IPEC to continue operations is allowing this utility to risk the lives and wellbeing of millions of people who could not be evacuated in the event of a catastrophic accident, solely for the purpose of boiling water.
A nuclear reactor splits atoms to generate heat--so much more heat, in fact, than is actually required to produce the steam that turns the turbines and generates electricity. It is the crucial lowering of those high temperatures that requires IPEC, by protocol, to regularly vent radioactive steam across the Hudson Valley. Lowering those temperatures also requires billions of gallons of river water IPEC then returns overheated to the Hudson, ultimately destroying the ecosystem, which has prompted the state to deny IPEC its water permit.
Right now IPEC, North Anna, and Vermont Yankee are all operating without state water permits, and so far their owners don't seem to care--about permits, or state governments, or the will of the people. Meanwhile childhood leukemia and thyroid cancers are about 65% higher than the norm within a 10 mile radius of a normally functioning nuclear plant, and studies have proven those numbers plummet after the neighboring plant is decommissioned.
So the question is not how effective a governor can be--but how effective an educated populace could be, if we mobilized a massive grassroots movement, such as the ones that were so successful in Germany, and Italy, and Sweden. We would need to mobilize like the Fukushima mothers are doing in Japan, where their children have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation since last March, where much of their food supply is contaminated, and much of their country will be a dead zone for hundreds of years.
Finally, let us remember that it was an earthquake that set in motion those three core meltdowns, hydrogen explosions, and fuel pool fires in Japan, and IPEC is located where two earthquake faults meet. Will we wait until we have a Fukushima on the Hudson before we collectively call for IPEC to be shut down?
Kudos to the author for covering this story so well.
What was unsaid, however, was that allowing IPEC to continue operations is allowing this utility to risk the lives and wellbeing of millions of people who could not be evacuated in the event of a catastrophic accident, solely for the purpose of boiling water.
A nuclear reactor splits atoms to generate heat--so much more heat, in fact, than is actually required to produce the steam that turns the turbines and generates electricity. It is the crucial lowering of those high temperatures that requires IPEC, by protocol, to regularly vent radioactive steam across the Hudson Valley. Lowering those temperatures also requires billions of gallons of river water IPEC then returns overheated to the Hudson, ultimately destroying the ecosystem, which has prompted the state to deny IPEC its water permit.
Right now IPEC, North Anna, and Vermont Yankee are all operating without state water permits, and so far their owners don't seem to care--about permits, or state governments, or the will of the people. Meanwhile childhood leukemia and thyroid cancers are about 65% higher than the norm within a 10 mile radius of a normally functioning nuclear plant, and studies have proven those numbers plummet after the neighboring plant is decommissioned.
So the question is not how effective a governor can be--but how effective an educated populace could be, if we mobilized a massive grassroots movement, such as the ones that were so successful in Germany, and Italy, and Sweden. We would need to mobilize like the Fukushima mothers are doing in Japan, where their children have been exposed to dangerous levels of radiation since last March, where much of their food supply is contaminated, and much of their country will be a dead zone for hundreds of years.
Finally, let us remember that it was an earthquake that set in motion those three core meltdowns, hydrogen explosions, and fuel pool fires in Japan, and IPEC is located where two earthquake faults meet. Will we wait until we have a Fukushima on the Hudson before we collectively call for IPEC to be shut down?
Scientists have determined that the Ramapo Fault is inactive. Where is this author getting her facts? Fukushima was a tragic event that no one ever wants to see repeated, but the fact is that the horrible events that transpired were the result of the earthquake and tsunami. You can’t compare Indian Point to Fukushima. They are two completely different plants, located in two different geographic areas. The Fukushima Daiichi plant was built below flood levels; Indian Point sits 30 feet above sea level and 24 miles inland. The facility has been studied at great length in terms of seismic design and the geological makeup of its location. Also, Indian Point's containment structure is among the strongest structures built by man, designed to safeguard the community and plant personnel even under extreme and unlikely accidents.