nuclear-news

But environmental groups want to derail the state plan, arguing that the reactors are a threat to public safety and the state instead should encourage the development of solar and wind energy.

“There are cheaper and better ways to get to zero emissions than having rate-payers give multi-million-dollar subsidies to aging, dangerous and expensive nuclear plants,” said Richard Brodsky, a former assemblyman from Westchester County who is working with the Alliance for a Green Economy.

Under its plan, utilities would buy power at inflated rates over two years from the operators of the 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……….

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But Brodsky, who once led a legislative committee that oversaw utilities, said the subsidy is unnecessary and would be a burden on electric bills.

“The big news here is that New York now wants to subsidize nuclear power,” he said. In a legal brief filed with the Public Service Commission, Brodsky said the No. 1 reactor at Nine Mile Point turned 47 years old this year and is the country’s oldest reactor.

The Ginna reactor is the fourth-oldest, he said.

Subsidies would not extend to the controversial Indian Point reactor in Westchester County, just north of New York City. Cuomo has advocated for its closure.

The governor has also said he wants the FitzPatrick reactor, slated to close next January, to remain open. Both reactors are owned by Entergy.http://www.pressrepublican.com/news/local_news/reactors-subsidies-pitched-to-curb-greenhouse-gases/article_d7e85bb0-5fca-5a61-970e-cc1a7ff409e6.html