When Gov. Kathy Hochul took office in 2021, New York was in the middle of a complicated energy transition. Albany had passed one of the nation’s most ambitious decarbonization laws only two years earlier, yet the state had just shuttered its single largest source of carbon-free power: the Indian Point nuclear station.
Five years later, the situation has flipped. Hochul, a Democrat who is up for reelection in November, watered down the state’s decarbonization goals this spring and is now calling for the biggest buildout of new nuclear reactors in decades.
“Expanding our nuclear energy capacity will play a key role in my all-of-the-above energy strategy to ensure we have enough reliable power to keep the lights on and costs down for New Yorkers while helping attract 21st century economic development opportunities,” Hochul said in a statement to Canary Media.
If successful, the 5 gigawatts of new nuclear power plants that Hochul aims to build would make New York the No. 3 state in the country in terms of atomic generating capacity.
It’s an ambitious target. The entire U.S. has built just over 3 GW of new nuclear capacity over the last 20 years, and most of it came from the first-of-a-kind AP1000 buildout at Southern Company’s Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating plant in Georgia, which was plagued by cost and deadline overruns.
