To the Editor,
When special interests and slogans drive state energy policy, a desirable outcome is unlikely. Consider what’s happened so far, as New York State launches into planning to achieve emission-free electricity generation goals in the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA).
Last year, 8300 gigawatt-hours of carbon-free energy – much more than all the solar and wind in the state generate annually – was removed from the grid when Indian Point (IP) unit 2 went offline. Two big gas power plants were built and permitted. CPV Valley at 680 megawatts (MW) has been in operation several years. Cricket Valley (CVE), at 1100MW, came online just as the ink dried on CLCPA.
State policy seems counter-intuitive: “cut emissions by burning more gas”. IP unit 3 will be shuttered this April. In Year One of the CLCPA, metro NY will go from 30% clean energy in 2019 to 90% gas-and-oil powered in 2021. The state did more than create new environmental justice communities in Dover and Wawanda where CVE and CPV are churning out volatile organic compounds and millions of tons of carbon-dioxide-equivalent emissions.
Buchanan, the home of Indian Point, is losing 1,000 good jobs, and the major contributor to its tax base.
The state is being guided by strange bedfellows on the committees formulating plans to meet CLCPA targets: On one side, we have “100% renewable advocates”, and on the other, fossil-fuel interests. But they are pushing in the same direction. Gas corporations support increased solar and wind because, as nuclear is shut down, you will need baseload or dispatchable energy provided by gas to partner with intermittent resources. People will want light and heat even when there is no sun or wind.
There is no proposal to extend ‘zero-emission-credits’ nor any proposal to tax carbon emissions so that gas plants pay for their pollution. Perhaps next on the chopping block are Ginna, Fitzpatrick, and Nine Mile. In the past, nuclear has produced a third of NYS’s energy and half of all carbon-free energy in the state. And next generation nuclear – small modular and molten-salt reactors — would seem to be the energy solution that the state is trying hard not to find.
Germany and California decommissioned nuclear reactors and spend lots of money on wind and solar: Each has deployed six times the intermittent resources that New York has. But both burn as much gas as ever. Germany wants to import U.S. liquified natural gas and to build a pipeline to Russia. California utility customers pay for overbuilt solar which must be curtailed (dumped) in the daytime, and pay for gas plants which fire up at night. California’s unstable grid experienced rolling blackouts this past summer.
We might cover the state with solar panels but we’ll have no electricity at night. Offshore wind turbines are expensive; transmission and maintenance are expensive. A hurricane, like the ones that recently hammered Puerto Rico, could destroy wind turbines and solar panels. Batteries plus intermittent power sources might offset small gas “peaker” plants. There is no battery-wind-solar solution in the world to replace the baseload energy provided by nuclear reactors.
Let’s not repeat California’s and Germany’s failed experiments. It is up to us to educate ourselves and to make sure that energy-dense, safe, reliable, zero-emission nuclear power remains part of our energy portfolio.
-Dennis Higgins
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