Hochul’s nuclear U-turn must launch energy reality for NY

What was once out is now back in.

Whether it’s bell-bottoms, baggy jeans or even those dreaded jorts, it’s always a surprise when items we once relegated to the parking-lot charity-clothing bin come back in style.

Yet none of those fashion flip-flops comes close to the neck-twisting, 180-degree reversal New Yorkers witnessed this week, when Gov. Kathy Hochul resurrected another favorite of the 1960s and ’70s: nuclear reactors.

“But wait,” you must be asking. “Didn’t our last governor — with great fanfare — shut down the state’s most critical nuclear energy plant just a few years ago?”

Indeed, it’s only four years since Andrew Cuomo shuttered Indian Point — New York City’s cleanest, most efficient, and emission-free power source — as part of what he called his “comprehensive clean-energy strategy.”

Hochul’s new decision is the correct one. We absolutely must invest in nuclear technology as part of President Donald Trump’s “all-of-the-above” energy approach, which is critical to fuel the coming data-center and artificial-intelligence boom.

New York simply can’t afford to lose even more jobs and residents to red states with cheap energy.

But Hochul’s U-turn also confirms what critics have long contended: That for the last 15 years New York has had no real plan for power production — just a scattershot array of fads, press releases and photo ops. 

New York energy policy, for whatever it’s worth, has been based on the following priorities, in this order: first, the easiest political decision; next, the appeasement of environmentalists; third, the support of labor unions; next, cost; and last — and very much least — the state’s actual energy needs, current and projected.

All five of those factors are political realities in a state like New York (although maybe we could blow off the “environmental justice” zealots — we all want clean air and water, but there’s no satisfying the Greta Thunbergs of the world.)

But we have to reverse their order of importance, with future power needs topping the list. 

Closing Indian Point in 2021 did just the opposite.

By 2030, New York will need 47 gigawatts of new energy to meet the AI demand, Goldman Sachs projects — and on top of that, the state must increase electricity production by 12% just to meet its own baseline growth, another study found.

Clearly, state policymakers placed specious enviro-politics ahead of a critical necessity.

Worse yet, closing Indian Point led to the burning of more gas and diesel fuel in existing power plants to meet demand.

The foolishness of the green left and complicit policymakers actually increased emissions. Fossil fuel is now responsible for 89% of downstate energy, up from 77% the year before Indian Point closed.

Who could have possibly foreseen that cutting 2,000 megawatts of clean power from our grid wouldn’t end well? Many people, as it turned out.

But logic and reason were sidelined by classic Cuomo capriciousness in what was perhaps the most backward energy judgment call since Edison bet the farm on Direct Current.

But enough dwelling on the past. After Tuesday’s mayoral primary Cuomo is all but an afterthought, and it’s refreshing to see Hochul taking a more rational approach to this problem.

Unfortunately, it’s taken her administration so long to come around to reality that Indian Point itself has been dismantled beyond any real chance of recommissioning.

And the cost of Albany’s dithering is going to be a real problem, new nuke plant or not.

The state’s decade of decay may already have set us back past the point of no return when it comes to attracting new businesses and residents.

As the Empire Center points out, while Texas has added 16% of new energy capacity since 2019, Florida 8%, and the country as a whole 4%, New York’s energy generation has dropped.

That translates into electric bills 48% higher than the national average, and a 15% premium on industrial customers.

The only solution is to quickly produce more power. There is no plan B.

Hochul must use the weight of her office to fast-track not just her proposed nuclear plan, but to clear the way for the construction of stalled pipelines and transmission cables, to build new natural-gas power plants, and to push ahead with in-progress offshore wind projects.  

There is no scenario in which, one decade from now, New York won’t need all the power it can harness.

That’s the heart of Trump’s “all-of-the-above” doctrine, and now it must be Hochul’s too.

Joe Borelli is a managing director at Chartwell Strategy Group and the former minority leader of the New York City Council.