The trade-off New York made when it abandoned nuclear energy
APR 26, 2024
“Sooner or later everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
In the final year in which both nuclear reactors were operational, the Indian Point Energy Center (IPEC) generated 16.7 terawatt hours of reliable baseload power from its 2.1GW of combined capacity—enough to meet roughly 25% of New York City’s total demand. By mid-2020, only one of those reactors was still running, but it managed to do so for the entire calendar year without interruption, turning in a perfect capacity factor of 100%. Not bad for a facility that sits on just 240 acres of land, the equivalent of a single square kilometer. IPEC permanently ceased operation on April 30, 2021, dealing a devasting blow to pro-nuclear activists around the country after their decade-long fight to stave off a counter-productive closure ended in bitter failure.
Punching above its weight
For the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), the loss of IPEC made keeping the lights on an acute challenge. As a stop-gap measure, NYISO authorized the construction of new natural gas power plants, although the lack of pipeline capacity to connect the state to the prolific Marcellus and Utica shales made this a suboptimal solution at best. It also ran afoul of the state’s carbon emissions goals. A recent article from The Guardian provided the sordid results:
“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….
Since the plant’s closure, it has been gas, rather than [sic] 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.”
As the IPEC was being constructed in the early 1970s, New York’s French-speaking neighbor to the north was embarking on one of the most ambitious, controversial, and environmentally disruptive energy projects in the history of the Western Hemisphere. Hydro-Québec—the government-owned utility that manages the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity across the Province of Québec—set about damming much of La Grande Rivière watershed in the name of electricity production. We turn to The Canadian Encyclopedia for the staggering details:
“The [James Bay] project flooded 11,500 km2 of wilderness land that was home to the James Bay Cree and Inuit. The village of Fort George (population 2,373), at the mouth of La Grande Rivière, was uprooted and relocated upstream. It is now called Chisasibi. The village of Eastmain now lies in a saltwater estuary, as Rivière Eastmain was reduced to a trickle. The flooding also created mercury contamination in fish, as mercury was released from rotting vegetation in the reservoirs, and contributed to the deaths of an estimated 10,000 caribou. Vast areas of wilderness were inundated (flooded) and forests were incinerated (burned) in an attempt to clear debris.”
Distinctly more than 240 acres | Hydro-Québec
According to the company, “Hydro-Québec’s generating fleet comprises 61 hydroelectric generating stations and 24 thermal plants with a total installed capacity of 37.2 GW. Its hydropower facilities also include 28 large reservoirs with a combined storage capacity of over 176 TWh, as well as 681 dams and 91 control structures.”
The James Bay Project alone accounts for 15.2 GW of capacity, or roughly the equivalent of 7+ Indian Point nuclear power plants (less when one accounts for capacity factor differences among the technologies), while chewing through thousands of square kilometers of once pristine land in the process.
In the ultimate perversion of logic, New York is now turning to Québec to help close the gaping hole IPEC’s closure created, adding to its already extensive reliance on imported electricity from the province. It’s a tale of irony, expense, risk, and environmental hypocrisy of the highest order. Let’s explore what’s really going on.
One significant advantage that hydroelectric power offers grid operation is the ability to closely load-follow demand with supply by spooling production up or down as market needs evolve. This is increasingly necessary when paired with intermittent renewables like solar and wind since the water accumulated behind reservoirs can serve as a giant battery. Integrated across Hydro-Québec’s system, the sheer scale of water stored behind its dams is unique, something the company’s leaders have been aggressively touting to state politicians in New York and across New England in an effort to increase demand for its exports.
This is all fine and good unless it stops raining, of course, and the battery finds itself in need of a recharge. In late 2023, Hydro-Québec was forced to curtail exports to the US in an unprecedented manner:
“Smaller-than-average rainfall in northern Quebec, where several of the company’s dams and generating stations are located, left reservoirs with less water than in previous years. The decision to reduce exports cost Hydro-Québec about $550 million, [chief executive Michael] Sabia said.
‘The issue essentially is that there wasn’t enough snow and rain in the places where we need it,’ Sabia told reporters Wednesday. ‘We had lower water levels in our reservoirs, so we took the decision to reduce our exports to keep energy available for our clients in Quebec. Let’s be clear: Hydro-Québec has enough energy for demand in Quebec and its long-term commitments for neighbouring markets.’”
Hydro-Québec’s reasonable prioritization of Québécois citizens during a drought plainly illustrates the fallacy of a self-imposed reliance on imports for domestic energy needs. Sabia’s emphasis on “long-term commitments” leaves plenty of wiggle room in the short-term, something NYISO found out this winter.
Apart from this episode, the partnership between Québec and New York has been generally effective because they experience peak demand off cycle to each other. New York’s electricity demand is highest in the summer when air conditioning needs reach their apex, while the proliferation of electric heating in Québec results in maximum demand during the coldest months of the year. The “electrify everything” movement is slowly unraveling this historical pattern. We turn to an expansive report in The New York Times for the details:
“For decades, managers of electric grids feared that surging energy demand on hot summer days would force blackouts. Increasingly, they now have similar concerns about the coldest days of winter…
Just 10 years ago, winter electricity use ran about 11 percent less than in summer, according to the group. By 2033, that gap is expected to shrink to about 8 percent. And by 2050, winter demand could surpass electricity use in the summer…
A major contributor in the winter is the increasing use of electricity to power heaters at homes and businesses that previously used oil or gas furnaces. While they are very efficient overall, electric heat pumps become less efficient when the temperature outside is below 30 degrees Fahrenheit, Mr. Robb [CEO of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation] said. As a result, electric utilities have to work harder when it’s very cold and during winter storms.”
Savior or villain? | Getty
Despite the increasing likelihood it will not be able to satisfy commitments during the winter months, Hydro-Québec is powering ahead with a massive new transmission project that will further tie the province to the State of New York. Known as the Champlain Hudson Power Express (CHPE), the new interconnector—built and operated by the private equity group Blackstone—is set to come online in a few short years. It is anticipated that CHPE will partially offset the loss of Indian Point:
“Once it enters service in the spring of 2026, CHPE will be the largest transmission line in the U.S. built entirely underwater and underground. Being mostly out of sight may have helped appease potential opponents, observers said. With a total cost of about $6 billion, the project will transmit hydropower from a network of dams in Canada owned by Hydro-Québec…
‘We’re expecting it to provide about 20 percent of New York City’s [electricity] needs, which is pretty substantial,’ said Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters.”
CHPE map | Champlain Power Hudson Express
To meet new demand both domestic and foreign, Hydro-Québec is embarking on a massive expansion of its production capacity. The $185 billion (CAD) plan calls for the installation of new wind turbines, the creation of several new dams, and capacity expansions at existing ones. The destruction of more immaculate natural wilderness awaits:
“In October 2023, Hydro-Quebec completed their fourth dam on the pristine Romaine River. In the same year, having made hydropower export deals such as the $6 billion CHPE project in the Northeast US, and with Quebec Premier François Legault advertising the province as the ‘green battery’ of the Northeast of North America, Hydro-Quebec announced a need to find 100 terawatt hours more of electricity to meet projected 2027 shortfalls.
Hydro-Quebec also announced in its 2023 Strategic Plan Update that it is reinvigorating surveys and studies on the hydroelectric potential of the Petit Mecatina River in Labrador, the longest wild river in the Cote-Nord Region of Labrador and Quebec. The vast and important river is known to the Innu as Natukamia Hipu, or river of broken waters, and in Naskapi regional dialect as Kuekkuatsheunekap Shipu, or wolverine river.”
To come full circle, Hydro-Québec is also pondering an approach to meet increased demand by returning to nuclear power, the very technology New York eschewed so foolishly three years ago:
“Hydro-Québec says it is studying whether to reopen the province’s only nuclear power generating station. The utility adds that as demand for electricity rises in the province, it is looking into restarting the Gentilly-2 reactor in Becancour, Que., on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River about halfway between Montreal and Quebec City.
The Hydro-Québec facility was shut down in 2012 by the provincial government after it reached the end of its service life and needed refurbishment. But the utility says it would be ‘irresponsible’ to exclude nuclear power as an option for meeting the growing energy needs of the province, adding that it is studying the current state of the facility.”
Irresponsible, indeed!
The lessons from the Indian Point affair are pointed and obvious. Prematurely shutting down perfectly operable nuclear power plants is tantamount to environmental and financial self-annihilation, and it is long past time government leaders stopped listening to those who insist upon such stupidity.
It is also time to reconsider the semantics of the energy debate. The superficial partitioning of options between “clean” and “not clean” diminishes the prospect of having serious conversations about trade-offs. Hydro-Québec’s hydropower may be “green,” but there were significant sacrifices made by Mother Nature to get there. Perhaps those are acceptable to the US green agenda when done on foreign soil? Is the safe handling of nuclear waste and the minuscule risk of accidents worth trading for the security commensurate with owning your sources of baseload power? Do we intend to follow Germany over the energy cliff?
It might be too late to save New York from itself, but not so for the more than 50 commercially operating nuclear power plants in the United States. May saner heads prevail with those.
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