by Joel Gingold
Folks, trust me on this one, it just ain’t gonna happen. The Indian Point Nuclear Plant will NOT be rebuilt in Buchanan, nor will any other nuclear facility be constructed there! Both the political and economic climates in our area just won’t permit it.
Full disclosure: I am a graduate nuclear engineer with a 60+ year career in commercial nuclear power, and I believe, despite all of the yelling and screaming, nuclear power, despite its many problems, must play a significant role in our energy future.
The decommissioning and dismantling of Indian Point have been ongoing for several years, and are simply too far along to permit an efficient, economic resurrection of the plant. While I personally would not have selected Holtec as the decommissioning contractor, Holtec has suggested that rebuilding the units (almost from scratch) would require at least $10 billion (with a B) and a promise that there would be no significant opposition to the project.
Where that money might come from was not addressed. We know that New York State and Westchester County officials oppose this action as do almost all local officials, except possibly those in the Village of Buchanan and the Hendrick Hudson School District, who are much less interested in recovering the carbon-free power the plant produced than in the tax revenue the facility would generate for them.
Just think about the enormous difficulties in raising the requisite funds and the intense opposition by public officials and the public itself that would accompany any proposed plan to reconstruct the plant. Why would any organization in its right mind go down this path, especially with the likelihood of years-long lawsuits and the like, delaying any progress in this regard? There are undoubtedly many alternatives which are far better options to apply one’s funds and efforts.
So don‘t get all excited and expend your own funds and energy opposing this prospect. It simply ain’t gonna happen! Just recall that the Indian Point resurrection was proposed by our esteemed Congressman, Mike Lawler, and we all know that he is often, maybe always, disingenuous and hypocritical. There have already been meetings on this subject, most recently at the Hendrick Hudson Library, and our local politicians are falling all over themselves to oppose this (mythical?) effort. If I were cynical, I would say that much of this is an attempt by the sponsoring organizations, and of course, the politicians, to generate contributions and enhance their own images. Self-serving? You can come to your own conclusion in this regard.
This does not mean that other “retired” nuclear plants will not be returned to service over the next few years. The Palisades Plant in Michigan will likely re-enter service later this year, and action has been taken to bring back the undamaged facility at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the Duane Arnold Plant in Iowa, previously the proposed site of an enormous solar farm. These facilities were placed in “safe storage” when they were permanently shut down, rather than being dismantled as is Indian Point, and their return to operation is much more feasible.
Why is this happening? Anyone who studies these projects and reads the trade press from around the world will be forced to acknowledge the growing international realization that, without nuclear power, there is absolutely no way we can possibly meet our climate goals. I will now await all of the rocks to be hurled at me by anti-nuclear advocates. But while we can all have our own opinions, we cannot have our own facts. We are currently losing the battle against climate change, badly, and, however unpleasant it might appear to some, we need to expand our options if the planet is to survive.
Some years ago, Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, posted an Op-Ed which stated, in effect, “Don’t believe anything that the oil and gas industry or the “green community” says; they are both lying to you!” That statement is still true today.
Case in point. At the time of the Indian Point shutdown, the “greens” assured us that it would not result in any increase in greenhouse gases. Surprise! When the second unit was permanently closed, greenhouse gases in our part of the state rose by about 25%, because, as many of us knew at the time, Indian Point power was replaced by generation from natural gas-fired (fossil fueled) plants. The promised “clean” power from new transmission projects has still not arrived in our area.
There may have been a number of valid reasons to close Indian Point. But from a purely climate perspective, as noted above, it was an abject disaster; one from which we have yet to recover.
The conventional wisdom to combat climate change is that we must electrify everything and produce all of our electricity by renewable means, principally solar and wind. Easy to state. Really hard to do.
It is worth noting that according to the American Clean Power Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association, the U.S trade organizations for renewable energy, ruby red Texas leads all states in wind power production by a large margin. Deep red Iowa gets over 60% of its electric energy from wind and solar, while New York gets only about 12%. California is first in solar capacity, but Texas is closing rapidly and Florida is moving up as well. New York ranks seventh, but contains only about 15% of the California or Texas capacity. So despite the actions of the Trump administration, local politics seems to have relatively little impact on the transition to renewables.
It has been stated on numerous occasions that renewables are the least expensive option to increase power production. But what exactly does that mean? I have not seen any such detailed analyses and wonder if such costs include the cost of the massive areas of land needed, the many storage batteries required to keep the lights on 24/7 and the cost of the transmission to get from the source to the load centers. And then, there’s the ~60% of our power currently generated by burning natural gas and coal as well as another almost 18% from nuclear plants. Is it currently equally inexpensive to replace all of these with renewables? I don’t think so!
One of the major factors in any such assessment is capacity factor. Capacity factor (CF) can be defined as the amount of power (kwh) actually produced by a facility in a year, divided by the amount of power it would produce if it operated at full rated power 24/7/365. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2025, U.S nuclear plants operated at a CF of 91.0%. On-shore wind farms had a CF of only 34.2%, while solar averaged 24.4%. Thus, the equivalent of an average 1,000 Mwe nuclear plant is 2,661 Mwe of wind power or 3,730 Mwe of solar, plus all of the storage batteries, transmission, etc. In Southern New York, according to New York State and Rockland Goes Green, solar CF is only about 15%.
Another concern is power density, i.e., MW per acre. Indian Point produced over 2,000 carbon-free MWe on ~250 acres, or about 8 MW/acre. Solar typically requires 5-8 acres per MW and wind farms need even more land, thus the trend to off-shore wind. So taking all of this into account, replacing Indian Point with a solar farm would require some 12,000 Mwe of solar energy and about 90 square miles of land (that is not a typo), plus the requisite batteries, transmission, etc. By contrast, the area of the Village of Croton is only about 8-9 square miles.
So the first question is: Where are you going to put it?
Clearly, such installations must be in rural areas where large tracts of land are available and are relatively inexpensive. Which raises the second question: How do you get the power from where it is generated to the load centers (principally urban areas) where it is consumed? It is well known that the U.S transmission grid is old, and creaky, and inadequate for the present, much less the future, and not only must it be upgraded, but new transmission lines must be added. But new transmission lines must, generally, be approved by each municipality through which they pass and nobody really wants them around. Permitting time alone often consumes decades and needed transmission capacity is delayed and its cost increases exponentially.
For example, the Champlain-Hudson Power Express (CHPE), often referred to as “cheapie,” bringing “clean” hydro-power from Quebec to our region, was originally supposed to be completed by 2022 at a cost of $2.2 billion. It is just now beginning operation, bringing about 1,250 MWe to the New York area (Indian Point was over 2,000 Mwe) and the cost has ballooned to over $6 Billion. Not so “cheapie” is it? And guess who’s going to end up paying those costs?
The Clean Path Transmission Line, proposed to bring renewable power to the New York City area from upstate, was effectively terminated when its costs rose too high.
Everything is being compounded by the numerous AI data centers proposed around the country. For the first time in many years, electrical consumption is projected to grow significantly and we need to figure out where all of this power is going to come from. The question of the need for such power and water consuming data centers and whether the U.S can prevail in the AI race with China without them, are questions for another time.
The best approach to this dilemma is for everyone to stop making unsupported claims and assumptions and asserting that those who favor other options are either stupid or evil. For all involved stakeholders to meet quietly, away from publicity mongers, and to thrash out the best practical approaches, most certainly taking economics into account. I don’t even know if this is possible in our current circumstances.
In the longer term, the answer seems to be controlled commercial fusion which can provide lots of pretty clean energy and essentially uses water as fuel. Unfortunately, despite the billions of public and private dollars being spent on it, we still haven’t figured out how to make it work on a large scale. As it has been for over 60 years, commercial fusion is projected to be at least three decades away.
Until then, we must do our best to minimize fossil fuel use (remember, your electric car is not all that effective if you charge its battery with electricity generated by gas or coal) and promote the use of every form of carbon-free energy. Of one thing we can be sure. Despite what some may tell us, this transition will not be easy; it will not be quick; and it certainly won’t be inexpensive.
But rebuilding Indian Point? Folks, it just ain’t gonna happen!
Retired nuclear engineer Joel Gingold has been a resident of Croton for more than 80 years. He wrote two books about his life in Croton and elsewhere, “Now Hear This” and “On the Street Where I Live.”
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Thanks Joel! Missing from your column--nuclear waste.
Thanks so much for this comprehensive article!
I hope that many of our citizens read this. I also hope that many of our citizens become aware of the tremendous solar "farms" that already exist in upstate NY and are proposed on our food farm lands and even our "protected" nature preserves. I have also read that Holtec has proposed installing a data center on Indian Point. Has anyone else heard about this? While everyone is busy worrying about nuclear energy plants I believe that a data center at that location is a serious concern.