Both right wing and left wing attack New York’s nuclear subsidy

Customers of National Grid, NYSEG and other state-regulated utilities will see bills climb by more than $2 per month beginning next year — and even more in subsequent years — if the plan stays on track, the critics said…….

representatives of more than 70 groups — consumer, environmental and conservative — announced they are working in unison to derail the “bailout” of reactors near Rochester and Syracuse.

The subsidy’s cost is expected to top $7 billion, according to a projection by the Public Utility Law Project, which is fighting the plan. Household customers will shoulder about $2.3 billion of that, it said, with the rest passed to industry, institutions and school systems.

“This is one of the biggest transfers of wealth in New York state history,” said Blair Horner, legislative director of the New York Public Interest Research Group………

Under the subsidy, New York utility companies will buy power at inflated rates over two years from the operators of two reactors at Nine Mile Point on the shore of Lake Ontario; the James FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Oswego County; and the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Plant in Wayne County……….

The arrangement is also opposed by a conservative think tank, the Empire Center for Public Policy, which notes that New York’s electricity rates are already among the highest in the country.

Entergy and Exelon are asking regulators for “prompt approval” of the FitzPatrick sale, noting that a decision needs to be made soon on refueling the plant. Entergy said last year that it planned to close the reactor in early 2017…….

Plans to have 7 million electric ratepayers in New York pick up the cost of the subsidy could also be challenged by operators of small, municipally owned utilities that do not use nuclear power……..http://www.thedailystar.com/news/local_news/nuclear-plan-gets-backlash-from-left-right/article_928006bc-b987-595a-ae5c-c11871ccd29d.html