The Partial Observer by Dennis Higgins
Now Is the Time To Speak Up in Favor of Nuclear Energy
Since the passage of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in 2019, utility rates are up 40 percent and over a million rate-payers are in arrears. At the same time, the energy reliability margin has been halved. Summer blackouts in the metro region are projected into the future. We are burning 30 percent more gas for electricity than before the CLCPA and pipeline proposals and expansion projections—NESE, Constitution, Iroquois ExC—are in the news. As noted by the state bar association (https://nysba.org/preempting-local-zoning-codes-fuels-opposition-to-renewable-energy-in-new-york/), rural communities have been robbed of home rule and environmental protection in the siting of industrial solar and wind by the Office of Renewable Energy Siting. The grid operator, NYISO, the state Energy Research and Development Authority, the governor, the Business Council and citizens across the state realize the current plan isn’t working. We must invest in clean technologies but ones that are reliable, affordable, scalable and which will foster economic growth for decades to come.
According to the NYISO, the state’s electricity needs are expected to grow significantly, possibly doubling in the next 25 years. Electrification of transportation, buildings and industry will require lots more juice. Nuclear power generates carbon-free electricity every minute of every day, regardless of weather conditions. Avid environmentalists, businesses and legislators should acknowledge that nuclear is a smarter complement to intermittent renewables than fossil fuels currently provide.
The Department of Energy, as well as NYSERDA and NYISO, indicates that when the system-level costs of decarbonization are considered, additional nuclear capacity will save money. Nuclear does not require expensive BESS storage, new poles and wire doubling or tripling the existing grid, or backup generation. While solar panels, batteries and wind turbines might last 25 years, a nuclear reactor is built to last 80 years or more, providing local tax revenue and four generations of workers with the highest wages in the industry.
The New York State Farm Bureau is concerned that 70 percent of new renewable development is on agricultural land. However, the state’s Coordinated Grid Planning Process has found that deploying just 5 gigawatts of new firm nuclear capacity will avoid the construction of 20 GW of sprawling solar and wind projects, and save more than 200,000 acres of farmland, forest, and wildlife habitat from destruction. And that is even before factoring in all of the additional land and costly system-level infrastructure that solar and wind require. None of that is needed for nuclear, which delivers reliable baseload electricity every hour of every day of the year. The cost of renewable energy credits are already hidden in your electric bill. Ratepayers are discovering that, using solar and wind alone, grid decarbonization becomes prohibitively expensive. Pursuing an energy portfolio that includes nuclear power will limit rural sprawl and protect nature. It will also check the assault on upstate communities by ORES.
What about waste? Fossil fuel waste is pumped into the atmosphere, causing eight million deaths per year globally, according to Harvard (https://hsph.harvard.edu/climate-health-c-change/news/fossil-fuel-air-pollution-responsible-for-1-in-5-deaths-worldwide/). Spent nuclear fuel is compact and contained. It can even be recycled. As reported by Oxford (https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-energy), nuclear power is as safe as renewables, with advanced reactors incorporating inherent and passive safety features to enhance their performance even more.
Micron’s proposed $100 billion investment in Central New York could create 50,000 jobs and transform our region into a global hub for semiconductor fabrication. That project and others will require enormous amounts of power, and they won’t tolerate service interruptions. If New York wants to retain existing industry and attract more, it must ensure that electricity is affordable and reliable. Otherwise, those investments, as well as the jobs and revenue that come with them, will go elsewhere.
New York’s grid already benefits from firm nuclear power. Running at over 90 percent capacity factor, our four existing reactors provide more than 20 percent of the state’s electricity and nearly half of its carbon-free electricity. In 2024, they avoided more than 16 million tons of CO2. NYSERDA’s analysis indicates that continuing to operate the state’s existing nuclear power plants will reduce total system cost by $15 billion on a net-present-value basis through 2050.
According to a 2025 study by The Brattle Group, our existing nuclear fleet supports more than 22,000 direct and indirect jobs, including 2,000-plus workers at the plants themselves. NYSERDA estimates that 5 GW of new advanced nuclear power could create between 5,000 and 7,350 permanent jobs. A number of counties and cities across the state have already expressed interest in hosting nuclear. Siting reactors at current facilities or at retiring fossil-fuel plants—where the workforce and grid connections already exist—would be a smart direction for development.
First-of-a-kind nuclear development costs, as seen with Vogtle in Georgia, can be avoided by building proven designs repeatedly and in sequence. France decarbonized its grid with older nuclear technology in about 10 years with repetitive construction of the same reactor plan. To control cost for ratepayers, nuclear expansion should be based on standardized designs—not a series of one-time projects.
Nuclear is clean green energy. Proposing at least 5 GW of additional nuclear capacity, the PSC’s Nuclear Reliability Backbone initiative is an important opportunity for New York to provide the policy certainty that manufacturers require. A diverse portfolio of carbon-free resources that includes advanced nuclear generation will provide affordable reliable electricity and give manufacturers the confidence to invest in New York.
Until September 24, the New York State Department of Public Service is requesting comments from you. Big Green groups have sent out blasts with formulaic anti-nuclear rhetoric for submission. Do you have something to say about which direction the state should go? Comment at https://documents.dps.ny.gov/public/Comments/PublicComments.aspx?MatterCaseNo=26-E-0335.
Dennis Higgins is a retired math/computer science professor. He and wife Katie run a farm in Otego and, as a family, they are committed to addressing climate change any way they can, including 20KW of solar panels, geothermal heat, all electric appliances, and driving an EV. Dennis has been engaged in regional energy issues for approximately 16 years.
