Photograph: Gary D Ercole/Getty Images
Kathy Hochul has announced plans to build a nuclear-power plant in New York, the first major new US plant in over 15 years, and one designed to add to add at least 1GW of nuclear power generation.
The governor said in a statement that she had directed the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to develop and construct a zero-emission advanced nuclear power plant in upstate New York to support a reliable and affordable electric grid.
“As New York state electrifies its economy, deactivates aging fossil fuel power generation and continues to attract large manufacturers that create good-paying jobs, we must embrace an energy policy of abundance that centers on energy independence and supply chain security to ensure New York controls its energy future,” Hochul said.
The governor described the plan as “a critical energy initiative” that would complement the construction of renewable energy and the state agency would “safely and rapidly deploy clean, reliable nuclear power for the benefit of all New Yorkers”.
Hochul said that the nuclear plant would add zero-emission baseload power and help to advance New York’s goal to achieve a clean energy economy.
Renewable energy groups slammed the decision.
“NYPA has the power and mandate to build 15GW of renewables and should not let Trump promises lead New Yorkers away from it. After appointing a Republican to lead NYPA while remaining silent on its mandate to build wind and solar, Hochul’s decision to step in based on promises from Donald Trump shows just how unserious she is about New Yorker’s energy bills and climate future,” said a statement from the Public Power NY Coalition.
It added: “NYPA should be laser focused on rapidly scaling up their buildout of affordable solar and wind which is the only way to meet the state’s science-based climate goals and lower energy bills.”
The development will be a test of Donald Trump’s executive orders to accelerate nuclear-power development in the US. But a site and reactor design has not been decided. One gigawatt of production is enough energy to power around a million homes.
Nuclear plants currently produce about 19% of the country’s electricity, down 4% from its 2012 peak. It is expected to decline further, though big technology companies have recently licensed power from ageing reactors to meet the demands of AI computing centers.
Only five new commercial reactors have come online in the US since 1991 and electric utilities companies have forecast the US will need the equivalent of 34 new, full-size nuclear power plants over the next five years to meet power requirements.
Last year, Microsoft signed a 20-year purchase agreement with the private generator Constellation that will see one of the reactors at Three Mile Island in Pennslyvannia restarted. Amazon signed a deal to purchase nuclear-generated power from the Susquehanna nuclear power plant, also in Pennsylvania, to supply data centers.
Separately, Google announced a deal to purchase nuclear energy from small modular reactors (SMRs) and Amazonsaid it had signed agreements to invest in four SMRs in Washington state to power data centers in Oregon. Oracle is designing an AI data center to be powered by three SMRs.
Given its geography, water supply and proximity of IBM and university tech research centers, Hochul is supporting plans to develop upstate New York into a tech center akin to Silicon Valley.
But the state retired the Indian Point nuclear plant 40 miles from Manhattan in 2021 in part due to environmental concerns and because the hijacker-pilots of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade center used the twin reactor’s domes along the Hudson river as sign posts. As one consequence of the closure, New York had to burn more fossil fuels, raising greenhouse-gas emissions even as local and state legislatures demanded a reaction.
“There was no Plan B,” Hochul told the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
Trump’s order to speed up regulatory approval of new nuclear power production could jump-start an industry that’s been in decline for three decades because of safety concerns, cost overruns and an unfavorable political environment.
But environmental groups have warned that the push for nuclear could also reduce regulatory controls related to health and safety. Earlier this month, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled a plan that would repeal a landmark climate rule that aims to mostly eliminate greenhouse gases from power plants by the 2030s.
Hochul told the outlet that she suggested to Trump that Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” should turn its attention to streamlining regulatory approval at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
“Why does it take a decade?” she said. “That’s why no one is doing it; the barriers are too high.”
