Report: Indian Point closure would bring blackouts

Shuttering Westchester County's Indian Point nuclear reactors could squeeze the state's power supplies and lead to rolling blackouts in the metropolitan area, New York's grid operator said in a draft report.

The Buchanan-based Indian Point nuclear power plant provides about 2,060 megawatts to the grid and accounts for as much as 30 percent of the electricity to the county.

Without Indian Point's output, "It would be necessary to take emergency operations measures, including load relief," meaning controlled blackouts, said the 2012 Reliability Needs Assessment report by the New York Independent System Operator.

A spokesman for Entergy, which operates Indian Point, viewed the report as fresh support for relicensing the plant.

"Indian Point is a remarkable asset for New York, not only for the amount of power it generates, but because it does so virtually emission-free," the spokesman, Jerry Nappi, said Monday. "This report demonstrates the challenges that would ensue if Indian Point were prematurely shut down."

But Phillip Musegaas, Hudson River program director of the environmental group Riverkeeper, said the report looks at a static landscape without considering changes to the power-generation marketplace.

"They're extremely conservative," Musegaas said of the New York Independent System Operator. "They look at things as they are and don't take into account new projects that are going through the permitting process."

Indian Point has two reactors, each of which has applied for a 20-year license extension. The license for Unit 2 expires in September 2013; the license for Unit 3 expires in December 2015. The plants, however, could continue operating if the licensing process extends beyond the expiration dates, under the rules of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a unit of the NRC, is scheduled to conduct October hearings on issues raised by critics of the power plant.Among the groups scheduled to present evidence are Riverkeeper and Hudson River Sloop Clearwater.

Though opposed to the relicensing of Indian Point, Riverkeeper supports the proposed Champlain Hudson Power Express project to bring up to 1,000 megawatts via a submerged cable, which would run along Lake Champlain and the Hudson River to Astoria, Queens.

Also on the drawing board is Advanced Power Services'1,000-megawatt natural gas-fired Cricket Valley Energy center in Dover.

The draft report, issued every two years, will be subject to comment by utilities and other market participants and approval by the New York Independent System Operator's board of directors.