NY State officials have met – but won’t say much about – bringing small, ‘clean-energy’ nuclear plants onto the state’s power grid to make up for increasingly threatening shortfalls.
By Thomas C. Zambito | New York Team: The Journal News
The Hochul Administration recently met with a developer of small nuclear reactors as it considers adding the next-generation power source to New York’s energy mix in the coming years.
The administration declined to comment on the talks, confirmed by one developer who characterized them as information-gathering efforts between itself and the state at a time when it appears likely New York won’t achieve its 2030 climate goals with wind and solar power alone.
‘We don’t comment on private conversations,’ Hochul spokeswoman Katy Zielinski said. The developer also declined to share further details about what was discussed.
The development could represent a shift in the state’s thinking about its clean energy future, which has largely focused on developing large-scale solar and wind projects in upstate New York, wind power off the Long Island coast and hydropower coming down from Canada along the Hudson River.
The effort has hit snags, hobbled by resistance to large-scale renewable projects upstate, canceled offshore wind contracts and stubborn gaps in the transmission network needed to deliver clean energy downstate where it’s vital to reversing the region’s near-total reliance on fossil fuels.
Reports issued in recent months by several state agencies cast doubt on the likelihood of New York hitting its climate goals — 70% reliance on renewables for electricity by 2030 and net-zero emissions by 2040.
Doreen Harris, the president of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), said the agency regularly meets with developers to learn about new technologies but referred questions about the developer meeting to the governor’s office.
Harris said recent interest in the technology has been jumpstarted by bipartisan support in Washington. In July, President Biden signed the ADVANCE (Accelerating Deployment of Versatile Advanced Nuclear for Clean Energy) Act, which supporters say will speed the approval process for new nuclear reactors.
At a two-day state-sponsored energy summit in Syracuse next month, there will be two panels on nuclear power, including one that will present a state blueprint for new nuclear technology.
“Is this a resource that would contribute to New York’s energy future?” Harris said. “This summit is part of that process of answering that question. We don’t have an answer to that question today.”
Electric cars, heating systems and large data centers are all expected to put a strain on the state’s energy grid. Not far from the site of the energy summit, tech giant Micron has plans to build a massive manufacturing plant to produce microchips that will challenge China’s dominance of the market.
The technology for small modular reactors has yet to be widely approved for commercial use.
To date, only one company — NuScale — has a design approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Supporters view them as a lower-cost alternative to large-scale nuclear power plants, whose construction has been beset by cost overruns.
The factory-built reactors don’t take up the footprint a large-scale reactor would and can be moved. But, like large-scale reactors, they produce energy throughout the day, not just when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing.
