Shuttering of New York facility raises awkward climate crisis questions as gas – not renewables – fills gap in power generation
When New York’s deteriorating and unloved Indian Point nuclear plant finally shuttered in 2021, its demise was met with delight from environmentalists who had long demanded it be scrapped.
But there has been a sting in the tail – since the closure, New York’s greenhouse gas emissions have gone up.
Castigated for its impact upon the surrounding environment and feared for its potential to unleash disaster close to the heart of New York City, Indian Point nevertheless supplied a large chunk of the state’s carbon-free electricity.
Since the plant’s closure, it has been gas, rather then clean energy such as solar and wind, that has filled the void, leaving New York City in the embarrassing situation of seeing its planet-heating emissions jump in recent years to the point its power grid is now dirtier than Texas’s, as well as the US average.
Modern nuclear technology is much safer than older stuff, additionally when the older plants are well maintained they are much safer than they’re made out to be.
This is one of those cases where pop culture doesn’t match reality and as a result people who are half informed do more damage to their cause by rejecting the good in pursuit of the great.
I’m 112% for replacing old outdated and unsafe infrastructure.
However, a new, updated, far safer plant will not get built to replace this one. Or any that close in the US until some people die off or shit really hits the fan energy-wise and people get more desperate. This is the least favorable time to build “safe” things.
This plant needed to be closed, but something has to replace it. And unless people start forcing renewables, shit like this is just the norm. Plant closes, nothing replaces it except fossil fuels, emissions go up.
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You’re kind of gaslighting people by equating “this instance of a 70 year old badly maintained plant” to “how safe nuclear power is”.
Besides, I am pretty certain some oil and gas lobbying prevented better maintenance here.
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As long as they are run by corporations, they will not be well maintained.
The plant was from 1956, nearing a century of age by now. Old plants like this one explode in their running costs and typically accumulate more and more maintenance incidences each year, ultimately becoming a security risk.
The main problem though is that countries betting on nuclear power do fuck all with renewables, which makes it unsurprising that you have to resort to other means to fill potential gaps to replace them. In this case they could’ve built renewables, or even other nuclear plants, for several decades already in order to replace this ancient one.
Articles & comments like this are basically just paid propaganda pieces by the nuclear lobby.
Calling 68 years ‘nearing a century’ as a comparison is a bit of a stretch.
It is really old in nuclear power plant tech terms and needed to be replaced. A combination of renewable amd nuclear is the way forward, but people treat nuclear safety concerns like they do airplane crashes, acting like the sky is falling even when there are no deaths for years and safety keeps increasing.
But why? There isn’t anything nuclear fills in to cover the cons of renewables. The old model of baseload power being cheap is no longer applicable, and that’s what nuclear is for.
Renewables are not effective everywhere, and while their power can be transmitted over long distances they can have periods of time where they are strained from extreme weather for longer than power storage can handle. Nuclear would be a less environmentally damaging way to cover those gaps compared to fossil fuels in some locations.
I’m thinking vast majority renewable with some nuclear, not like an even balance or anything like that.
They are where people tend to live.
This is how you hybridize things: you line up the pros and cons of each solution, and then use the pros of one to cover the cons of another.
Wind and solar are a good example. The wind is often at a standstill when the sun is brightest, and then wind picks up when the sun is blocked. There are lulls where you have neither, but the good news is that we have plenty of data for that. We can calculate an expected maximum lull for a region, and then add enough storage to cover that plus some more for a safety factor.
Nuclear does not actually help. Its pro is a low marginal cost for sitting at 100% all the time. Its biggest con (since we’re both in agreement that nuclear can be done safely) is high up front cost. Really high. Which means you had better leave it at 100% all the time, or that up front cost isn’t going to amortize well.
What happens when added to a renewable grid is that you hit an opposite problem: the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, and combined with nuclear baseload, you now have too much (which causes other problems on the grid). Now you need to do one of three things:
The first two mean economic waste. The third one means you still need storage–but then, why not forget nuclear entirely and use that money to build more storage? And keep in mind, nuclear is expensive as fuck to build. That money can go into a lot of storage.
This winter my home city had a power supply crisis. It was night time (I live in a high latitude so nights last a long time during winter) which meant no solar, and it was -30C, which meant the wind turbines all shut down (they can’t operate when it’s below -30C). The whole province was short of power, only the coal and natural gas plants were keeping the lights on. We dodged rolling blackouts but it was a close thing. Lots of people live here.
Which is perfectly fine. Nuclear power plants can change how much power they’re putting out. It’s not “economic waste”, the term is “load-following power plant” and it’s routine for nuclear power plants.
You’re right that cold winters in northern latitudes present additional system constraints. But that doesn’t mean the renewables + storage strategy is flawed, it means we need more transmission and more storage, and gas backup will linger longer in such areas than it does in warmer areas. We’re still early in the transition and have a ton of low hanging fruit to capture before we need to really focus on the remaining 20%.
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Everything can be repaired. It just stops being cost effective at a certain point to do so.
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Indian Point was water cooled, hence the river water leakage and heating concerns. Water cooled plants don’t have those huge stacks you’re talking about. Those only exist on air cooled plants.
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Aww man, you were so close to having it figured out. It mentioned that in an off handed way because it left you, the reader, with an impression of what was happening without having to get into the details. Why would they do that? Because said details don’t line up with what you’ve been talking about.
If we look at the NY RiverKeepers website, a source biased towards getting rid of this plant, we find this article: https://www.riverkeeper.org/campaigns/stop-polluters/indian-point/radioactive-waste/radiological-leaks-at-indian-point/
In there is a leak to the radiological events since the plant opened: https://www.riverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Indian-Point-Radioactive-Leaks-Sheet.pdf
Oh. No leaking reactors, no leaking primary or secondary cooling systems…most of the problem was with their holding ponds and there were some valve failures.
Now none of that is good but it’s a FAR cry from the “leaking reactor” narrative that you seem to have.
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Building new nuclear plants isn’t particularly easy when there are environmentalists clamoring to shut them all down and a general public that’s scared of atoms.
Also, don’t accuse articles of being “propaganda” and then call 68 years “nearing a century” to fearmonger for your own view instead.
Coming from the guy claiming people are “scared of atoms”. 🤡
So you agree that hyperbole is uncalled for?
It’s not hyperbole when we’re past 2/3s of a century.
I’m not the only person calling you out on it.
That must certainly mean you’re right! That’s how the internet works after all.
It weakens your claim that it’s not hyperbole, since the meaning of words like that are consensus-based.
Do you seriously think it would make sense for a 68-year-old man to claim that he’s “nearly a century old”? That wouldn’t be misleading?
The industry also thinks the problem is regulations. It isn’t. If you have your shit in order, federal regulators have been willing to issue new nuclear plant permits and extend old ones. The actual probably is that the tech is fundamentally unaffordable; nobody wants to buy what they’re selling. SMRs are not likely to fix this, and there doesn’t seem to be any other fission tech on the horizon that would, either.
Two things I think we should do is subsidize reactors for reprocessing old nuclear waste, and put SMRs on ships. There are reasons for both that don’t directly show up on balance sheets.
There’s a reason someone as stupid as Homer can keep the plant working.
FYI: The Simpsons wasn’t real.
Nuclear engineers and techs are highly trained. Even the ones at Chernobyl were exceptionally good at their jobs; they were just fucked over by a broken system and hidden effects.
Im aware, it seems one or two people got the joke tho