After nearly 60 years, Indian Point nuclear power ends with reactor shutdown
The era of generating electricity through the use of atomic energy at Indian Point came to an end April 30 when the nuclear reactor at Entergy”™s Indian Point Unit 3 was permanently shut down.
It was in the early 1950s when General Dwight D. Eisenhower was president that the movement to harness atomic energy for peaceful purposes gained a strong foothold in the U.S. and elsewhere. Eisenhower proposed an “Atoms for Peace” program in 1953 to develop civilian applications for nuclear technology.
Heavily promoted was the concept of using the heat created by nuclear reactors to replace the heat generated by burning coal, oil or gas that was creating steam to turn electric generators and light up the world. Nuclear reactors had already been proven to be efficient and reliable for generating electricity to power U.S. Navy vessels as well as in other applications.
The Indian Point plant at Buchanan, fronting on the Hudson River, was built with three nuclear reactors. Construction started on Reactor No. 1 on April 30, 1956. The reactor started operating in 1962. It was permanently shut down on Oct. 30, 1974.
Reactor No. 2 began commercial operations in 1974, with Reactor No. 3 coming on line in 1976. Entergy bought Indian Point units 1 and 2 from Con Edison for $602 million. It subsequently bought Unit 3 from the New York State Power Authority. Unit 3 started operating in 1976.
Indian Point Unit 2 shut down as scheduled on April 30, 2020.
“Indian Point has been operated and maintained at the highest levels of reliability, safety and security for many years, and Unit 3 has been online continuously since April 9, 2019, setting a new world record for continuous days of operation,” Chris Bakken, Entergy”™s chief nuclear officer, said in a statement. “Indian Point”™s enduring legacy will be the thousands of men and women who operated the plant safely, reliably, and securely, while helping to power New York City and the lower Hudson Valley for nearly 60 years.”
Indian Point Unit 3 was rated to produce 1041 megawatts of electricity. A megawatt is 1 million watts of electricity, enough to light up approximately 10,000 100-watt light bulbs. Unit 3 has generated electricity continuously for 751 days since it was last refueled in April 2019. That constitutes a world record for commercial light-water nuclear power reactors.
According to Entergy, Indian Point generated approximately 25% of the power consumed annually in New York City and the lower Hudson Valley.
If appropriate approvals are received, the actual decommissioning of the plant is to be handled by Holtec International, which would become the new owner of the plant after shutdown.
Entergy said that Holtec will hire more than 300 current Entergy employees for Phase 1 of decommissioning, and that Holtec agreed to honor existing collective bargaining agreement contracts with union employees at Indian Point. Approximately 170 employees at Indian Point plan to relocate or have already moved to continue working with Entergy.
Entergy said Holtec would initiate decommissioning at Indian Point promptly following regulatory approval and transaction close, and it expects to release portions of the site for reuse by the mid-2030s — nearly 40 years sooner than if Entergy continued to own the facility.
On April 14, subsidiaries of Entergy and Holtec, several New York state agencies, local governments and others, filed a joint proposal with the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) designed to help settle issues raised concerning decommissioning. The PSC is expected to vote on the proposal in mid-May.
The organization Riverkeeper, which had been a critic of the decommissioning plans, is among the organizations joining in the joint proposal. Riverkeeper, New York Attorney General Letitia James, the town of Cortlandt and the Hendrick Hudson School District were to withdraw their appeals of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission”™s approval of the license transfer to Holtec, which were pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
“Riverkeeper believes the oversight and financial conditions in this agreement will protect New Yorkers and create a solid foundation for the decommissioning process, and is proud to be part of its formation,” Riverkeeper said in a statement. “For this reason, we are willing to accept the proposed license transfer despite our many concerns against the license transfer to Holtec and the NRC”™s lax oversight.”
Entergy itself remains in the nuclear electricity business. It operates nuclear plants that can generate approximately 8,000 megawatts of electricity within its portfolio of plants, totaling approximately 30,000 megawatts of generation capacity.