“The proposed Clean Energy mandate also includes a proposal to support emissions-free upstate nuclear power.”
The inclusion of nuclear power in the New York State renewable energy plan is drawing national attention.
“Hitting on state taxpayers to pay for steadily rising nuclear costs while wind and solar energy are less and less expensive makes no sense in a 21st Century economy,”
the inclusion of nuclear power in the state plan would take resources away from true clean, green energy.
Long Island as a Nuclear Park, CounterPunch, by KARL GROSSMAN MAY 27, 2016 “……..PSEG has had a very sorry record as THE Long Island utility.
This bad record is continuing with intensity.
Last month, for example, PSEG took a blow at solar energy on the island asking the state Public Service Commission to “minimize” and “later eliminate” benefits received by homeowners and business owners utilizing solar energy. PSEG wants to hike the charge to solar customers for being connected to the grid and reduce what they get for sending electricity into it.
“We should encourage homeowners and business owners to invest in rooftop solar systems—but PSEG wants to penalize them,” says Gordian Raacke, executive director of Renewable Energy Long Island. ‘This runs counter to the idea of getting more renewable energy into the grid and of the New York State energy plan which seeks to get half of the state’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030.”…….
And regarding nuclear power, a fundamental focus of LIPA was to lead in bringing safe, clean, renewable—and not nuclear—energy to Long Island. This was in keeping with its formation being instrumental in stopping LILCO’s plan to build many nuclear power plants on the island with Shoreham the first.
Another U.S. utility that’s been as bullish on nuclear power—and still is: PSEG.
In the 1970s, PSEG embarked on a plan to build a line of “floating” nuclear power plants in the Atlantic Ocean off New Jersey with the last just south of Long Island. Millions were spent before this scheme was jettisoned………
What the state is calling a “50 by 30” plan, advanced by Andrew Cuomo, is formally titled a “Clean Energy Standard.” As the Department of Public Service explained in a statement: “Governor Cuomo directed the Public Service Commission to design and enact a new Clean Energy Standard mandating that 50 percent of all electricity consumed in New York by 2030 come from clean and renewable energy sources.” However, the next line in the statement is: “The proposed Clean Energy mandate also includes a proposal to support emissions-free upstate nuclear power.” That component of the state plan drew strong criticism at the public hearing.
“Nuclear energy is neither clean nor renewable,” testified Pauline Salotti, vice chair of the Green Party of Suffolk County. “No way should it be considered renewable.”
Raacke said New York should not seek to “prop up nuclear power” and spoke of the Shoreham “nuclear folly” that went on “for years” on Long Island and the successful struggle against it. He objected to a “revisit to that past in the plan.”…..
The boosting of “upstate nuclear power” in the state plan follows Andrew Cuomo’s support for the continued operation of nuclear power plants in upstate New York despite his opposition to the Indian Point nuclear power plants downstate, 26 miles north of New York City, which he’s been demanding be shut down. ……
The Syracuse Post Standard, in an article by Tim Knauss headlined “Cuomo’s Renewable Energy Plan Includes Boost for Upstate Nuclear Plants,” quotes Syracuse attorney Joe Heath, counsel to the Onondaga Nation, as opposing this. Said Heath: “We should…not think that nukes are the answer.”
The upstate nuclear plants that Cuomo is backing—and that his plan claims produce renewable energy—include the long-troubled Nine Mile Point and FitzPatrick nuclear plants in Scriba, although the current owner of FitzPatrick want to close it this year because, says Entergy, it is not financially viable to operate……
The inclusion of nuclear power in the New York State renewable energy plan is drawing national attention. “Cuomo is mistaken to squander his political clout on beating the dead horse that nuclear power has become in the State of New York,” says Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project for the organization Beyond Nuclear.
“Hitting on state taxpayers to pay for steadily rising nuclear costs while wind and solar energy are less and less expensive makes no sense in a 21st Century economy,” declares Gunter. “It’s time to offer retraining to the nuclear work force to install renewable energy, expand state-of-the-art energy storage systems like Tesla’s PowerWall and make energy efficiency and conservation part of every home, business and industry in the state.” Moreover, says Gunter, the inclusion of nuclear power in the state plan would take resources away from true clean, green energy.
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College of New York, is the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet. Grossman is an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion. http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/05/27/long-island-as-a-nuclear-park/
