Eric Levitz writes:

New York City is among the most progressive and climate-conscious municipalities in the United States. It is legally obligated to bring its greenhouse emissions to 40 percent below their 2005 peak by the end of the decade. And yet over the past year, NYC has dramatically expanded its reliance on fossil fuels – thanks, in no small part, to the efforts of Empire State environmentalists.

In 2019, when the city put its ambitious climate goals into law, the Indian Point nuclear power plant provided the bulk of its carbon-free electricity and 25 percent of its overall power. The plant was profitable and met the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s exacting safety standards. Nevertheless, environmental groups had been fighting to close it for decades, arguing that its proximity to both New York City and the Stamford-Peekskill fault line created an unacceptably high risk of a nuclear disaster. The catastrophe at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in 2011 bolstered their cause. In 2021, New York closed down Indian Point. At the time, the conservationist organization Riverkeeper argued that Indian Point’s electricity could be fully replaced by renewables.

Alas, wind and solar power are neither sufficiently abundant in New York nor sufficiently reliable to replace the emissions-free energy that Indian Point once produced. In May 2021, the first full month after the plant’s closure, carbon emissions from electricity generation in New York State shot up by 37 percent. In New York City, fossil-fuel producers’ share of the electric grid rose to 90 percent. [Continue reading…]