NYTimes Article about Indian Point

["Jacobus, John (OD/ORS)" <jacobusj@ors.od.nih.gov>]

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Fuel Rods and Brass Tacks



May 26, 2002

By KIRK JOHNSON 



BUCHANAN, N.Y., May 23 - For many years, the argument over

the Indian Point nuclear power plant here in New York

City's northern suburbs was one of the great evergreens of

Northeastern environmentalism. It could always be counted

on and it never really changed. The positions on both

sides, repeated by rote for decades, became a liturgy that

was sure to inflame passions without much risk of anything

actually happening as a result. 



One side said that the plant was unsafe because residents

could not be easily evacuated in the event of an emergency,

and that its owners were incompetent. The other side said

that the reactors were vital to the power grid and that

opponents were overwrought and emotional. September's

terrorist attacks added a new note to the chorus, but left

the strident rhetoric largely intact. 



That dynamic is changing. Now, a conversation about Indian

Point is likely to drift toward the economic fallout from

Enron. People who oppose the plant have also begun to lay

out specific horse trades they might be willing to make.

Some environmentalists say, for instance, that more air

pollution and so-called greenhouse gas emissions, neither

of which is a big issue in the case of nuclear power, would

be a reasonable price if closing Indian Point meant that

the region's old oil-burning plants - many considered to be

on their last legs - had to keep running. Both sides are

grinding out numbers and studies as never before. 



Other new variables have entered the picture as well, like

the proposed Millennium Pipeline that would carry natural

gas into the New York City area. Many residents in this

part of New York vehemently oppose the pipeline, which is

stalled by environmental and safety concerns. But both

sides in the new plant debate concede that if nuclear power

were taken out of the region's mix of energy-making fuels,

natural gas would become more crucial than ever. 



What has happened, energy experts say, is that the members

of the Indian Point debate team - supporters and opponents

alike - have been forced, in a way, to grow up. Although

most environmentalists and industry officials say the odds

are still long that the plant will close any time soon,

playing "what if" is no longer the purely theoretical

parlor game it once was, and that has made all the

difference. Ideology and philosophy are out; nuts and bolts

and real-world implications are in. 



"When you begin to think through the actual closing of a

plant, a lot of issues come up," said Robert H. Socolow, a

professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at

Princeton, who studies energy issues. "Some are

nightmarish. They're all difficult." 



Certainly, security is still the driving force, especially

in the last few weeks since the Bush administration issued

a warning about a possible terrorist strike this summer on

an American nuclear plant. And the shift toward practical

terms and arguments does not make the positions any less

sharp or passionately held. 



But it does alter the terrain. From its once-narrow base as

an environmental issue, the question of nuclear power in

New York City's backyard has expanded to envelop almost

every aspect of how energy is bought, sold and distributed.

Any discussion of electricity economics, energy

conservation - even the predictions about the length of the

recession, which has reduced energy demand since fall -

eventually turns to Indian Point's twin brown domes on the

banks of the Hudson River, 30 miles north of the George

Washington Bridge. 



Some of these new questions are huge and profound: do

deregulated energy markets really work, and how exactly

would they deal with something like the closing of Indian

Point? Is there a threshold at which the potentially huge

costs of decommissioning the plant would become too high

for society, or the region's economy, to bear? 



Other questions are small and profound: should the added

security costs needed to operate a nuclear plant be borne

by the public or the industry? And if high security is a

permanent new cost of business, is it still an economically

efficient way to make electricity? 



"Things are part of the mix now that never were before,"

said Jim Steets, a spokesman for the Entergy Corporation,

the company based in New Orleans that owns and operates

Indian Point. 



Among the most novel of the arguments in the new Indian

Point playbook is that closing the plant might actually fix

some things that are wrong with New York's electricity

system, most of which have nothing at all to do with

terrorist threats. 



One big issue in electricity economics right now is a money

drought. Since the collapse of Enron last year, investors

who are still bullish on power plant investments in New

York have become about as hard to find as Manhattan parking

spaces. Seven plants have received regulatory approval

around the state, but only one is under construction and no

one is sure how many will go forward. The answer, some

people say, is to close Indian Point. 



Removing 2,000 megawatts from the system, plant opponents

say - enough to power about two million average homes -

would crimp the regional electricity supply and send a

signal to Wall Street, which would see an opportunity to

make money and so throw open the money spigot. The plants

on the drawing board would be built and Indian Point's

electricity gap, they say, would be resolved. Case closed. 



"The loss of Indian Point Units 2 and 3 would allow market

forces to essentially trump any Enron effect," said Alex

Matthiessen, the executive director of Riverkeeper Inc., a

nonprofit conservation group based in Garrison, N.Y., less

than 10 miles from the plant. "It's essentially a

supply-and-demand question." 



Other experts say that such a mechanism might in fact work,

as odd as it sounds, but that it would be a far more

wrenching process than Mr. Matthiessen and other advocates

suggest because the triggering event would not be the

plant's closing, but the higher electricity prices that

would result. Closing alone would not be enough. 



"Price is the only signal the market understands," said Dr.

Rajat K. Deb, the president of LCG Consulting, an energy

advisory firm based in Los Altos, Calif. Dr. Deb said that

high prices would also have to remain high for a long time

to convince investors that they were not just a blip. "But

then the question becomes whether that is politically

sustainable when it starts hurting the economy and people

lose jobs," he said. 



Underlying all the possible plans for Indian Point is the

question of time. Mr. Steets at Entergy said if the plant

were to be shut down tomorrow, at least five years of

cooling would be required before the radioactive fuel could

be safely moved. During that time - if not longer because

of the uncertainties about long-term storage - the plant

would contribute no electricity, but might still be just as

much of a terrorist target because of the fuel inside, so

little would actually be gained, he said. 



Plant opponents, on the other hand, say that there is in

New York a window of opportunity that might not come again.

A year ago, they say, when the news was filled with talk

about the possibility of a California-style energy crisis

descending on New York, the idea of taking Indian Point

off-line would have been unthinkable. Then new emergency

supplies were built in the city, and a recession,

compounded by the World Trade Center attack, reduced

demand. It's that temporary slack period, they argue, that

must be seized. 



The other trick, people involved in the debate say, is to

calculate the risks in the new Indian Point equation -

specifically, which factors can be controlled and which

cannot. If the air got dirtier from burning more oil or

coal, what would that mean? 



"There are in fact significant health risks from coal plant

emissions - they're chronic in nature, and they're serious,

but nowhere near as serious as if Indian Point was

attacked," said Daniel Rosenblum, a senior lawyer at the

Pace Law School Energy Project, an advocacy group that

works for sustainable energy and conservation. "And we can

do things about coal plant emissions."



http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/26/nyregion/26INDI.html?ex=1023602629&ei=1&en

=09046163c9628944



Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

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