Dive Brief:
- The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) wants to close the Entergy-owned and operated 2,061-megawatt Indian Point Nuclear Energy Center for 42 days between May 10 and August 10 to protect migrating Hudson River fish from the facility’s heated water discharge.
- Environmentalists and the DEC say Indian Point's Hudson River water intake system, which withdraws 2.5 billion gallons per day for plant cooling and discharges it still warm, kills about a billion fish, fish eggs, and larvae yearly, and want Entergy to install cooling towers but Entergy says that would cost $2 billion and take until 2029 whereas a Wedgewire screen system installed in three years at a cost of $250 milllion would protect the fish.
- The DEC would provide warning enough for Entergy and state grid operator NYISO to re-source the 25% of Manhattan’s power Indian Point supplies, just as warnings were provided by Consolidated Edison when it owned and operated the reactors and did comparable shutdowns.
Dive Insight:
The fight over the proposed Indian Point closure, scheduled when Manhattan summer electricity demand is highest, adds to the tension between Entergy, which wants the plant’s license extended for another 20 years, and state regulators and environmentalists, who are dubious of the facility’s safety.
Business and labor groups support Indian Point and called for DEC to drop the proposal because it “would mean lost jobs, higher electricity prices, significantly lower electric reliability, and vast economic uncertainty" and NY AREA opposed the closure because it could require utilities to use more fossil fuels.
Entergy filed in 2007 with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission for license renewals that could take until 2018 to process and can’t be completed unless the state approves water permits.
