nuclear-news

Long Islanders Frustrated at Plan To Bail Out Aging Nuclear Power Plants

As CBS2’s Jennifer McLogan reports, the plan is fueling frustrations for folks on Long Island. One particular group of residents has a message for Albany; scrap the governor’s clean energy plan to bail out the three aging plants.

Cuomo says closing them would boost electrical rates for everyone in the state. State subsidies will cost ratepayers up to $7.6 billion over 12 years

“500 million of it will be paid by Long Islanders,” Blair Horner from the New York Public Interest Research Group says. “Long Islanders who have faced a double whammy.”

The double whammy is a result of the never-opened nuclear reactor at Shoreham.

Some ratepayers complain the plan is particularly unfair to Nassau and Suffolk residents, the only New Yorkers still paying for the Shoreham nuclear plant shuttered in 1989. Long Islanders are collectively paying off Shoreham’s $1.1 billion debt until the year 2033. Now, the state’s “Clean Energy Standard” means another surcharge of two dollars per month added to all utility bills — surcharges to energy guzzlers like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, local governments, and hospitals will be in the millions of dollars.

“Larger facilities like schools, churches, businesses, their rates are going up and they are just going to pass it right onto us,” Suffolk homeowner Gail Payne said……

On Wednesday, protesters appealed to state lawmakers to put a one year moratorium on the nuclear bailout plan until a better solution is reached.http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2017/05/31/plan-to-bail-out-aging-nuclear-power-plants-fuels-frustrations-for-long-islanders/

June 2, 2017 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, USA