New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced plans right now to develop a brand new nuclear energy plant, the primary to be constructed within the state in a long time.
It’s the medical updates sign that nuclear power might see a comeback within the US because of wide-ranging help from some unusual bedfellows: the Trump administration purporting to hunt “power dominance”; tech corporations in want of extra electrical energy for AI information facilities; and local weather hawks on board with nuclear power as a carbon pollution-free various to fossil fuels.
Nuclear power might see a comeback within the US because of wide-ranging help from some unusual bedfellows
“Using superior nuclear expertise can present the State with a better range of its power sources that may help New York’s purpose of a rising economic system with a dependable, zero-emission electrical energy system,” New York State Vitality Analysis and Growth Authority president and CEO Doreen Harris stated in a press release.
Hochul is directing the New York Energy Authority to assemble a minimum of one new web site for nuclear power upstate with the capability to generate a minimum of 1 gigawatt of electrical energy (about half the capability of Hoover Dam energy plant).
The state is concerned with advanced reactors which can be nonetheless below growth, within the hopes of overcoming a number of the obstacles the nuclear power business has confronted through the years. After a increase in nuclear reactors constructed within the Seventies and ‘80s, the expertise struggled to compete as gas-fired energy crops and photo voltaic and wind farms turned cheaper sources of electrical energy. Fears about nuclear accidents just like the partial meltdown at Three Mile Island and conflicts over where to store radioactive waste have additionally slowed down the business.
The Vogtle energy plant in Georgia has grow to be an instance of the sorts of issues which have plagued nuclear energy initiatives; it’s the location of the primary all-new reactors constructed within the US in additional than three decades. After development began in 2009, Vogtle models 3 and 4 lastly came online in 2023 and 2024, roughly $17 billion over funds.
Now, the average age of a nuclear reactor within the US is 42 years previous, with many retiring just lately or scheduled to quickly shutter. That development is beginning to reverse, with assist from Huge Tech and authorities incentives. Google and Amazon have each inked agreements to help the event of next-generation nuclear reactors. Meta signed a deal this month to assist preserve a reactor constructed within the Eighties alive for one more 20 years. And Microsoft announced a power purchase agreement final yr that’s purported to result in the restart of 1 reactor at Three Mile Island.