Hochul’s announcement did not specify a design or even a location for the new plant, but there were some hints. The press release describes “at least one new nuclear energy facility with no less than one gigawatt of electricity.” While 1 gigawatt is the capacity of a Westinghouse AP1000, the large, light-water reactor built at Plant Vogtle in Georgia, the explanation seems to leave room for the possibility of multiple, smaller plants.
Then there was where Hochul chose to make the announcement, in front of the monumental Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant, which, when it was built in 1961, was the largest hydropower plant in the western hemisphere. The release includes an intriguing reference to the country just on the other side of the river, saying that the plan “will allow for future collaboration with other states and Ontario, building on regional momentum to strengthen nuclear supply chains, share best practices, and support the responsible deployment of advanced nuclear technologies.”
To me at least, all this points to the possibility that we could actually be talking about a small modular reactor, specifically GE Hitachi’s BWRX-300, one of a handful of SMR designs vying for both regulatory approval and commercial viability in the U.S. Canada’s Ontario Power Generation recently approved a plan to build one, with the idea to eventually build three more for a total 1.2 gigawatts of generating capacity, i.e. roughly the amount Hochul’s targeting. The Tennessee Valley Authority, America’s largest public power provider, is also looking at building a BWRX-300. Whichever is completed first will become the first operating SMR in North America. (A NYPA spokesperson told me there has been “no determination on technology yet,” nor on location.)
There are a few policy conclusions we can draw from the announcement, as well, one being that Hochul has determined New York’s energy needs do not match up with its current, renewables-heavy energy roadmap set out more than five years ago. The 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (signed by Cuomo) set out a goal for New York to supply 70% of its electricity with renewables by 2030; about a year ago, the Hochul administration said that it would likely not meet that target, which has only slipped farther from view under the Trump administration’s assault on the offshore wind industry, which was supposed to anchor the state’s renewables supply — especially near New York City, where land is scarce but shoreline is plentiful.
The new nuclear plan also has a distinctively upstate appeal, which is not surprising considering Hochul’s Buffalo roots. (She said during the announcement that she had visited the Niagara plant, which is just outside Buffalo, “so many times.”) The upstate power grid is less carbon intensive than the downstate grid and is due to receive much of the wind and solar development necessary to meet New York’s climate goals. But the northern reaches of the state are also more politically conservative and more rural, making it both an inviting target for renewables development and a potential wellspring of opposition.
“The fundamental challenge of wind, solar, and storage across upstate is that it’s subject to a lot of local opposition,” Ben Furnas, who served as director of the Mayor’s Office of Climate and Sustainability in New York City, told me. “Something that’s remarkable about nuclear power is that the land footprint is more modest.” (The NYPA spokesperson said that NYPA’s own plans for renewable development were not being altered.)
Nuclear power plants can also be economic lifelines — especially in rural areas — due to the permanent, high-paying jobs they support and direct economic benefits to the surrounding communities.
“There’s a lot of real win-win deals to be struck,” Furnas said. “It’s not an unknown, radical, alien notion. Plenty of people work in those plants and live near them. It’s a very different politics than what was happening in Hudson Valley around Indian Point,” where environmental groups like Riverkeeper (long associated with former Cuomo associate and current Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.), had worked for years to shut down the plant.
Monday’s nuclear announcement included supportive quotes not just from the usual suspects of state energy and environmental officials and union leaders, but also from the chief executive of Micron, which is set to start working on a semiconductor fabrication facility in the central part of the state. “A critical factor in the success of the semiconductor ecosystem is access to affordable, reliable energy. We commend New York State for advancing an all-of-the-above energy strategy — including nuclear power,” Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra said in a statement.
“To power this one facility, Micron is going to need so much power — so much incredible power — and there’s only one commercially viable option that can deliver that much clean, renewable, reliable power, and that’s what’s been operating in New York for decades: nuclear energy,” Hochul said Monday. “Harnessing the power of the atom is the best way to generate steady zero-emission electricity, and to help this transition.”
The mainstream environmental groups that supported the renewables-focused 2019 law (many of which either oppose nuclear power or are at best neutral towards it) were nowhere to be found during today’s announcement, however, and the plan has already drawn skepticism from some progressives.
Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat who chairs the New York state senate’s finance committee, said in a statement that she had “significant concerns” about the nuclear plan, including its cost effectiveness, how to dispose of nuclear waste, the time required to site and build the project, whether other renewable options could fill the gap instead, and whether it has the “full informed consent from impacted communities.”
“I have yet to see any real-world examples of new nuclear development” that have met all these concerns, Krueger said. New York has a checkered history of nuclear development: Long Island ratepayers spent decadespaying for the completed but never operational Shoreham nuclear plant, whose costs ballooned by billions of dollars as construction dragged on from 1973 to 1984.
But the announcement comes at a time when the federal regulatory and tax balance is tipping toward nuclear regardless. The Trump administration issued a fleet of executive orders looking to speed up nuclear construction and regulatory approvals, and Senate Republicans’ version of the mega budget reconciliation bill includes far more generous treatment of nuclear development compared to wind and solar.
Public Power NY, an advocacy group that supports renewables development by NYPA, expressed skepticism about the nuclear plan in spite of these supportive signs.
“Hochul’s decision to step in based on promises from Donald Trump shows just how unserious she is about New Yorker’s energy bills and climate future. NYPA should be laser focused on rapidly scaling up their buildout of affordable solar and wind which is the only way to meet the state’s science-based climate goals and lower energy bills,” the group said in a statement.
For his part, Furnas was more pragmatic. “It’s really good that Governor Hochul is putting everything on the table when it comes to ensuring reliable generation for New York State and to meet clean air and carbon emission goals,” he said. “It would be foolish and unfortunate to not look at everything she can.”
Hochul herself appears determined to push through.
During the announcement, referring to the buzzing power plant behind her, Hochul said that “belief in sometimes impossible ideas” can bring people together. The power plant currently standing on that site was built in less than three years after an earlier plant on the Niagara collapsed. New nuclear power in New York may have seemed impossible, but it might still happen.
Auke-Florian Hiemstra
REN21
