Shuttering of New York facility raises awkward climate crisis questions as gas – not renewables – fills gap in power generation

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.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
    11·
    7 months ago

    I’ve always been pro nuclear. But what I’ve come to understand is that nuclear accidents are traumatizing. Anybody alive in Europe at the time was psychologically damaged by Chernobyl. Don’t forget also that the elder Xers and older worldwide lived under the specter of nuclear annihilation.

    So you’ve got rational arguments vs. visceral fear. Rationality isn’t up to it. At the end of the day, the pronuclear side is arguing to trust the authorities. Being skeptical of that is the most rational thing in the world. IDK how to fix this, I’m just trying to describe the challenge pronuclear is up against.

    • someguy3@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      7 months ago

      You got it. I’ve had this discussion and the anti nuclear boils down to “somewhat, somehow, something, someone, maybe, possibly, perhaps may go wrong. Anything built by man could fail”. There’s no logic, just fear.

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
        0·
        7 months ago

        At this point, you can be economically anti-nuclear. The plants take decades to build with a power cost well above wind/solar. You can build solar/wind in high availability areas and connect them to the grid across the states with high power transmission lines, leading to less time that renewables aren’t providing a base line load. One such line is going in right now from the high winds great plains to Illinois, which will connect it to the eastern coastal grid illinois is part of.

        We also have a hilarious amountof tech coming online for power storage, from the expected lithium to nasa inspire gas battery designs, to stranger tech like making and reducing rust on iron.

        There is also innovation in “geothermal anywhere” technology that uses oil and gas precision drilling to dig deep into the earth anywhere to tap geothermal as a base load. Roof wind for industrial parks is also gaining steam, as new designs using the wind funneling current shape of the buildings are being piloted, rivaling local solar with a simplier implementation.

        While speculative, many of these techs are online and working at a small scale. At least some of them will pay off much faster, much cheaper and much more consistently before any new nuclear plants can be opened.

        Nuclear’s time was 50 years ago. Now? It’s a waste to do without a viable small scale design. Those have yet to happen, mainly facing setbacks, but i’m rooting for them.

        • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          there is one cool thing about nuclear though, if you know what you’re doing they’re ripe for government subsidy investment. One and done, they’ll run for like 30-50 years. No questions asked. It’s really just the upfront build cost that’s the problem.

          • Sodis@feddit.de
            0·
            7 months ago

            While renewables get build without subsidies, because they pay off anyway.

            • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              0·
              7 months ago

              there are a lot of subsidies for renewables right now. They both have use cases, and different advantages. Nuclear is just particularly apt for the exact situation we’re in right now.

              As economists say, diversify investments.

              • Sodis@feddit.de
                0·
                7 months ago

                You mean being in need of green energy as soon as possible? I don’t see nuclear helping short term.

    • andyburke@fedia.io
      0·
      7 months ago

      FWIW, I’m an Xer against nuclear power, but not for the reason you outlined: it’s because it’s an overall bad approach to energy generation.

      It produces extremely long-lasting waste, on timescales humans are not equipped to deal with. It has a potential byproduct of enabling more nuclear weapons. The risks associated with disaster are orders of magnitude greater than any other power generation system we use, perhaps other than dams. It requires seriously damaging mining efforts to obtain the necessary fuel. It is more expensive.

      We have the tech to do everything with renewables and storage now.

      It’s not my trauma, it’s my logic that leads me to be generally against nuclear. (Don’t have to be very against it, no one wants to build these now anyway.)