Governor Kathy Hochul’s proposal for a 5-GW advanced-nuclear “Reliability Backbone” is a welcome acknowledgement of an issue that New York’s electric-sector planning has too often avoided: a system increasingly dependent upon weather-dependent wind and solar resources still requires firm, dispatchable generation when the wind is not blowing, the sun is not shining, demand is high, and transmission is constrained. However, it is not clear whether New York is prepared to make the durable financial, regulatory, and political commitments that a real nuclear program requires.
I am convinced that implementation of the Climate Leadership & Community Protection Act (Climate Act) net-zero mandates will do more harm than good if the future electric system relies only on wind, solar, and energy storage because of reliability and affordability risks coupled with cumulative environmental impacts of those resources. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect the position of any of my previous employers or any other organization I have been associated with, these comments are mine alone. I acknowledge the use of Perplexity AI to research and organize the material summarized in this article.
Comment Submittal
The Independent Intervenors — Roger Caiazza, Richard Ellenbogen, Constantine Kontogiannis, and Francis Menton — have submitted comments in Case 26-E-0335 supporting important elements of Terra Praxis’s proposal for a Nuclear Reliability Backbone. However, our support is conditional. New York should not simply add nuclear generation to the enormous renewable-energy, battery-storage, hydrogen, backup-generation, transmission, and distribution buildout already contemplated under the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. If the State builds substantial quantities of new nuclear generation, it must reassess what other infrastructure can be avoided.
That is the critical point. Nuclear should be evaluated as an alternative to part of the renewable-heavy resource plan, not as one more costly mandate layered on top of it. The appropriate question is not whether New York can add 5 GW of nuclear to its existing plans. The appropriate question is whether 5 GW or more of dependable, dispatchable, zero-emission generation could reduce the need for wind, solar, battery storage, hydrogen-fueled generation, transmission lines, distribution upgrades, land conversion, and fossil-fuel backup.
The Terra Praxis comments cite a Coordinated Grid Planning Process scenario in which 5.5 GW of nuclear-like firm capacity enables New York to meet load with roughly 100 GW of installed capacity rather than approximately 130 GW in the State Scenario. The implications are obvious. A portfolio with sufficient firm generation may require substantially less weather-dependent generation and much less supporting infrastructure.
That comparison must be made transparently and using total system costs. It is not enough to compare the nominal levelized cost of energy from a wind turbine, a solar installation, a battery, a hydrogen turbine, and a nuclear plant. A reliable electric system must also pay for transmission, energy storage, backup capacity, interconnection upgrades, curtailment, fuel supply, land use, and the capacity necessary to survive low-wind and low-solar periods during winter peaks. The relevant metrics include accredited capacity, winter reliability performance, forced-outage risk, fuel security, construction and schedule risk, and the effect on customer bills.
The Independent Intervenors’ comments recommend that the Commission compare at least four alternative portfolios:
- A renewable-intensive portfolio using the currently assumed buildout of wind, solar, storage, transmission, and dispatchable emissions-free resources.
- A portfolio in which new nuclear provides a meaningful share of dispatchable emissions-free generation and thereby permits a reduction in renewables, storage, backup generation, and transmission.
- A portfolio focused on maintaining or expanding existing zero-emission nuclear generation, with new nuclear added only when it is the least-cost, risk-adjusted alternative.
- A portfolio that relies on other prospective dispatchable emissions-free resources only after those technologies demonstrate commercial maturity, sufficient duration, fuel security, accredited capacity, and competitive cost.
Consumer Protection is Essential
I support advanced nuclear because it is the only demonstrated large-scale, dispatchable, long-duration, zero-emission resource available today. Hydropower and storage are valuable, but New York cannot expand them enough to meet the entire need for firm capacity. Hydrogen, renewable natural gas, and long-duration storage may eventually contribute, but they have not yet demonstrated that they can be deployed at the scale, cost, and duration necessary to replace fossil generation throughout New York’s system.
However, supporting the concept of nuclear is not the same thing as accepting an open-ended commitment by electric customers. New York has a long history of expensive energy-policy mistakes, and large nuclear projects have particular cost and schedule risks. A nominally “fixed-price” engineering, procurement, and construction contract does not eliminate risk if the design is incomplete, the scope changes, the contractor lacks the financial capacity to absorb losses, or political pressure ultimately makes cancellation impossible.
For that reason, the Independent Intervenors argue that no project should receive customer-funded support unless the Commission first finds that it:
- Has a demonstrated reliability need, including during winter peaks and periods of low wind and solar output.
- Has a feasible site, cooling-water arrangement, deliverable transmission, and credible environmental and licensing pathway.
- Uses commercially mature technology or places first-of-a-kind risk on developers and vendors rather than customers.
- Has completed and independently reviewed engineering, constructability analysis, cost estimation, and schedule development.
- Is competitive on an all-in, risk-adjusted basis with alternatives that provide equivalent reliability value.
- Has enforceable cost, schedule, availability, and performance obligations.
- Includes a hard project-cost cap, a customer-bill-impact cap, private-sector first-loss obligations, and clawback provisions for nonperformance.
- Identifies the renewable, storage, transmission, hydrogen, or other investments that can be avoided because the nuclear project is built.
The comments also recommend that all revenues be counted. Customer support should decline if a project receives capacity-market revenues, energy-market revenues, ancillary-service revenues, federal tax credits, federal loan support, private offtake revenues, or other government assistance. Otherwise, customers could end up paying overlapping subsidies for the same facility.
The uncomfortable financing question
A reader asked me to review Rod Adams’s interview with New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA) President and CEO Doreen Harris. It raises the most important practical question: is New York’s apparent nuclear enthusiasm real, or is it merely a political gesture designed to appeal to pro-nuclear Upstate constituencies while avoiding the difficult financial choices required to build reactors?
I do not believe the State’s interest is necessarily insincere. Harris described a serious set of planning activities: a 5-GW target for incremental advanced nuclear capacity, a direction to New York Power Authority (NYPA) to pursue at least 1 GW, a State master-plan process, site and technology evaluations, workforce and supply-chain efforts, and examination of financial and commercial mechanisms. She also explicitly acknowledged that nuclear projects will involve complex commercial arrangements among the State, the federal government, developers, vendors, communities, and private investors.
But planning, studies, memoranda of understanding, and policy-option papers are not the same thing as financial close, a construction notice to proceed, or commercial operation.
Harris was commendably candid that the State is exploring three broad roles: pre-development support such as early site work; possible State investment or ownership; and new forms of revenue support comparable in concept to the Zero Emission Credit program for existing nuclear facilities. She did not commit New York to any particular ownership model, cost-overrun guarantee, or customer-support mechanism.
That uncertainty is understandable at this early stage, but it is also the core problem. Nuclear plants require extraordinarily large, patient, and risk-tolerant capital commitments. A private developer cannot invest billions of dollars based only on the hope that a future administration, Commission, Legislature, or public campaign will continue to support the project through permitting, construction, cost escalation, and eventual operation.
My own experience in the deregulated electric-generating business makes me skeptical that private developers will undertake that risk in New York without unusually strong guarantees. I supported applications to replace old simple-cycle turbines at NRG Astoria. Those applications were completed, but the company ultimately chose to invest elsewhere. The projects did not proceed because the company could deploy its capital with less risk in other opportunities. After I left, the remaining permit application was denied because it was inconsistent with the Climate Act confirming their fears.
That experience involved conventional natural-gas repowering projects, not multibillion-dollar nuclear stations with long construction schedules, specialized supply chains, federal licensing, political risk, and the potential for major cost overruns. If a competitive generator developer would not commit capital to a conventional repowering project in New York, why should anyone expect a private investor to commit the much larger sums required for new nuclear generation without firm and durable protections against regulatory and political reversal?
New York’s credibility problem
Rod Adams opened his interview with an accurate description of New York’s mixed nuclear record. The State has four operating nuclear units with strong performance and high capacity factors. Yet it also has
the legacy of West Valley, Shoreham, and Indian Point.
The Shoreham experience is particularly relevant. The Long Island plant was completed after immense expense, but it never generated commercial electricity. According to Adams’s introduction, Shoreham had cost roughly $6 billion before it was sold and shut down at the direction of government. Whether one agrees with every decision involved in the Shoreham saga is not the point. The point is that investors remember that New York has demonstrated a willingness to change the rules after capital has been committed.
Indian Point presents a more recent version of the same credibility challenge. Two reactors with years remaining on their operating licenses were closed because of a political agreement, despite their role as large sources of dispatchable zero-emission electricity within the New York City contr. The State has preserved the upstate nuclear fleet through Zero Emission Credits, while simultaneously allowing Indian Point to close. That history creates an obvious concern for anyone asked to finance a new reactor: what assurance is there that New York’s support will persist when the project becomes controversial, expensive, or politically inconvenient?
The answer cannot simply be that today’s leaders support nuclear power. Nuclear projects take longer than election cycles, gubernatorial terms, PSC appointments, and changes in legislative priorities. Investors need credible, enforceable, durable commitments. Ratepayers, however, deserve protection against an open-ended obligation to pay for a project that is late, over budget, or abandoned.
Those two requirements are in tension.
I support the Nuclear Reliability Backbone as an acknowledgement that New York cannot operate a reliable zero-emission electric system using wind, solar, and short-duration batteries alone. If New York is serious about electrification, rising load, data centers, semiconductor manufacturing, winter reliability, and the retirement of aging fossil generation, it needs firm generation that can operate regardless of weather.
But I am not optimistic that New York will build out 5 GW of new nuclear generation easily.
The State’s energy-policy history, the structure of deregulated generation markets, the enormous capital requirements of nuclear construction, and the lingering political risk from Shoreham and Indian Point all make private investment difficult. A viable project likely will require a substantial State role: early site development, revenue certainty, possible NYPA participation or ownership, access to federal financing and tax credits, and a credible long-term contractual framework.
At the same time, that support cannot become a blank check. The State cannot reasonably promise developers enough protection to induce private investment while also guaranteeing that customers bear no risk. Something has to give. The likely outcome is that New York will have to choose openly among three imperfect options:
- A primarily public or public-private project with significant taxpayer or ratepayer exposure.
- A heavily subsidized private project with long-term revenue guarantees and carefully limited, but still real, customer risk.
- Continued studies and policy announcements without a reactor actually reaching construction.
The Independent Intervenors’ comments take the proper position. New York should preserve the nuclear option and pursue the reliability benefits of dispatchable emissions-free generation. However, it should do so only after comparing nuclear honestly with the full system cost of the renewable-heavy alternative, identifying what redundant infrastructure nuclear can avoid, assigning construction and performance risk to the parties best able to manage it, and imposing firm limits on customer exposure.
The next step is not simply to procure nuclear. The next step is to decide whether New York is prepared to make the durable financial, regulatory, and political commitments that a real nuclear program requires. Until that question is answered, the Nuclear Reliability Backbone remains an important planning concept rather than a credible construction program.
