Central New York Nuclear Plants Struggle To Avoid Financial Meltdown

mdsolar writes "As recently as four years ago, nuclear power companies were planning to spend billions of dollars to build a new reactor in Oswego County, alongside three existing nuclear plants. Then the bottom fell out. Natural gas-burning power plants that benefit from a glut of cheap gas produced by hydrofracking cut wholesale electricity prices in half. Now the outlook for nuclear power plants is so bleak that Wall Street analysts say one or more Upstate nuclear plants could go out of business if conditions don't change. Two Upstate nukes in particular — the James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Oswego County and the R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in nearby Wayne County — are high on the watch list of plants that industry experts say are at risk of closing for economic reasons."

Comments

Re:That popping sound

[Andy Dodd]

Yup. I live in upstate New York.

I'd rather have a nuke plant a mile away than gas drilling operations commencing anywhere upstream on the Susquehanna, even if I pay more, because with gas I know I'll be paying longterm for the contamination. Nuclear's track record per unit of energy produced is stellar compared to the track record of constant failure and environmental contamination the gas drillers have established so far.