With deadlines looming for the federal relicensing of Indian Point”™s two nuclear power generators, water-quality hearings between the plant”™s operator and the state Department of Environmental Conservation have threatened to stall the entire process.
The hearings, which began Oct. 14, have pitted Entergy Corp. against the DEC, which in April 2010 rejected the company”™s application to renew its Section 401 Water Quality Certificate that allows Indian Point to use water from the Hudson River in the operation of its two nuclear power generators.
While Entergy officials have voiced optimism that this time around they have evidence that should swing things in their favor with the DEC, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has said it could not issue a renewed license without the water-quality certification in place.
“The issue needs to be resolved in New York before we could make a final determination on license renewal,” said NRC spokeswoman Diane Screnci.
The hearings, which are expected to run through February 2012, are being held pursuant to the Federal Clean Water Act and related requirements under the New York State Environmental Conservation Law.
Entergy said it has taken calculated steps at Indian Point to prevent any harmful environmental impacts from occurring as a result of its use of Hudson River water, but opponents of the plant are demanding Entergy construct cooling towers, which come with a price tag of $1 billion each, or shut down the plant altogether.
“We”™re in this fight to win it. Indian Point needs to close,” said Paul Gallay, president and CEO of Ossining-based environmental watchdog Riverkeeper Inc. and one of the most outspoken critics of the plant.
Rick Smith, president of Entergy”™s Wholesale Commodity business, said 25 years of studies show the impact of Indian Point on the Hudson River is negligible, adding that the cost of energy in the region would spike if Entergy was forced to build the two cooling towers.
“Electric ratepayers would pay significantly more for electricity if Entergy were forced to construct cooling towers either because the costs would be factored into future rates or Indian Point would be forced to shut down,” Smith said. “A shutdown would lead to replacement costs which, according to the independent (Charles River Associates report on Indian Point), would be about $14 billion over a 15-year period following Indian Point”™s retirement.”
On an individual consumer basis, energy bills could rise between 4 percent and 14 percent, according to the study.
Hunting for alternatives
While the plant”™s fate is far from decided, the mere possibility of IP2 and IP3 being retired when their current licenses expire in 2013 and 2015 has local governments, energy providers and consumers clamoring to come up with options that would keep costs from escalating while still meeting the energy demands of the region.
When Indian Point is running at full capacity, the 2,000 megawatts it produces would be enough to power the equivalent of 2 million homes.
Several independent analysts and industry representatives queried by the Business Journal concluded it would be impossible to meet the statewide energy demand if energy production of Indian Point”™s magnitude was removed from the grid without new sources of power generation in place.
“Those out there that suggest that retiring Indian Point can be done without considering any replacement, they”™re not being reasonable,” said Franz Litz, director of the Pace Energy and Climate Center at Pace Law School in White Plains.
Litz”™s conclusions mirrored those reached in an August report released by Charles River Associates in Boston, which stated, among other things, that unless new generation or transmission capacity was in place, “the retirement of IP3 in 2015 would cause the grid to fall short of minimum resource adequacy standards by the summer of 2016.”
The construction of any new source of power generation ”“ be it wind, solar or a fossil-fuel plant ”“ would take time, said Con Edison spokesman Michael Clendenin.
“The replacement for 2,000 megawatts would have to come from a combination of new power generation sources,” Clendenin said. “Any new replacement project ”“ whether you”™re talking about wind or solar or fossil-fuel plants ”“ they take a long time.”
That doesn”™t even take into consideration permitting and siting issues that a developer looking to build a new plant or transmission line might run into, let alone what the local reception would be to the construction of a new plant, Clendenin and the Charles River Associates report both noted.
Both sources also speculated that an energy provider might be reluctant to build a new power plant in the region until it was assured of Indian Point”™s hypothetical retirement.
The above conclusions have been disputed by an analysis of Indian Point by Synapse Energy Economics Inc., which states there “is currently a surplus of electricity capacity in the regions near Indian Point” and that if the generators were not relicensed there would be “no need for new capacity to maintain reliability until 2020.”
The latter report, which was commissioned by the National Resources Defense Council Inc. and Riverkeeper, specifically disputes a number of the Charles River Associates report”™s findings, particularly those that suggest the price of power would increase under most scenarios for replacing Indian Point.
Replacement power has already been found. Since 2006, the state of NY has saved 4000Mw of power with conservation and energy efficient lighting, twice Indian Point’s output. Please see the book Green Lighting from McGraw-Hill. All this talk of required additional generation is an academic ruse devised to postpone the innevitable. Much more can be done since it is estimated a complete LED retrofit of the state would reduce electrical consumption by 20%. This could easily take place in a few years given the proper incentives. Anything is cheaper than cleaning up after another nuclear disaster. Please spare the Hudson Valley the same fate as Fukushima. We’ve ducked bullets in Buchanan long enough. Time to come out ahead.
Con Ed delivers 560MW of electricity from Indian Point through long term contracts. And the contracted amount is scheduled to decrease through 2013. Indian Point no longer delivers all of it’s electricity. A line under the Hudson from NJ to NYC has already been approved and will be operating in two years. Your article gives short shrift to the NRDC study. How about some more ink on the replacment options put forth there.